Reading Group #5 ('The Listener')

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Reading Group #5 ('The Listener')

1veilofisis
Mai 17, 2011, 3:29 am

Alright, here we are!

2LipstickAndAviators
Mai 17, 2011, 6:16 am

Having just scanned the first paragraph I have one thing to say thusfar.

£25 a year for rent in London!!!!! You'd be lucky to get a decent meal here for that these days! I wish my rent was £25 a year, I'd take £25 a week...

Anyway I'll print it out in a quiet moment at work and look forward to reading it properly and saying something more intelligent later :)

3veilofisis
Mai 17, 2011, 9:08 am

I'd probably take the forty-odd dollars that works out to for a tank of gas these days, let alone even a few days' rent!

4LipstickAndAviators
Mai 17, 2011, 9:36 am

I don't know when this story was written, but I'm fairly sure pre 1980s (and I imagien the story comes long before then) it was more like $3+ to £1. Which probably goes part of the way to explaining the glaring difference in the value of £25.

5veilofisis
Mai 17, 2011, 11:05 pm

It was written in 1907, I believe.

6alaudacorax
Modifié : Mai 18, 2011, 1:59 pm

I'm reading this on the tab next door.

It's quite humorous until his sister turns up, isn't it? And then it turns a bit sinister. But why is the sister there? What's her significance?

7veilofisis
Mai 18, 2011, 2:19 pm

I'll say this about 'The Listener:' I don't think there is really any deep meaning to it, at least not in the strictest sense, but the story is an excellent, tense narrative and I've always admired it first and foremost for its imagery. It still creeps me out like nothing else ever has, and like nothing else probably ever will...that bit with the 'I want your covering.' Eek! And that frenzied, fervid clamber up the staircase and into that pitch-black, lonely room...terrifying! Above all, though, for giving me nightmares, is that waking in bed to find the 'listener' staring at his own face in the vanity... Ugh! Just typing that gave me a chill... And how about that last line! In fact, every time I reread this, it gets better; the only other things I've experienced that with are The Picture of Dorian Gray and a small assortment of other short stories (perhaps three)...

As for anything lurking beneath the surface, aside from Blackwood's frequent (and somewhat brooding) mysticism, I'm very curious to hear what you think, rankamateur (and of course everyone else, too!)...

8veilofisis
Mai 18, 2011, 2:22 pm

Do I sound like enough of a devotee???

And now I'm remembering the first time I encountered this one, and it was the first Blackwood (I think I mentioned elsewhere that he is my favorite writer) I ever read. I was hooked from the start....

I was probably sixteen-years-old, and trying my hand at writing short fiction. I found 'The Listener' on a free Gutenberg-style site, like Wikisource or something, and...ah, memories...

Anyway, off to Shakespeare. Sorry for the digression!

9alaudacorax
Mai 18, 2011, 6:50 pm

#7 - As you say there's probably no particularly deep meaning there, but Blackwood builds quite an interesting and ambigous interplay between the haunting and the state of the diarist's mental health. He seems to have been borderline hypochondriac about his 'nerves' even before the events of the story but what is cause and what is effect? Is he vulnerable to the 'Listener' because he's bordering on being 'a lunatic, or weak-minded person' or are his oddities - like thinking everyone in the reading-room is staring at him - results of the ghost's attacks on him?

I like the dark humour, too - I was amused at the way he disparages Chapter for worrying about his nerves and I'm sure that in the November 10th entry the diarist is slightly stoned.

10alaudacorax
Mai 18, 2011, 7:28 pm

I assume that the point of the sister episode is to hint that they were estranged for five years because of irrational - 'cracked' - behaviour on his part. And then this is twice echoed with the 'cracked' mirrors - lots of mythology attached to mirrors and broken mirrors, of course.

11veilofisis
Mai 19, 2011, 2:56 am

I think you're on to something. The narrator's 'nervous condition' is certainly evident from the start. This is different territory than 'The Horla,' however, despite certain similarities; in 'The Listener' I believe the narrator's 'conditions' leave him vulnerable to the nightmare visitations depicted later in the story. This is probably the eeriest idea in the entire fiction. Similar sensitivities are glimpsed in other Blackwood yarns ('The Wendigo,' 'Accessory Before the Face'). That, and epistolary tales have a certain propensity towards 'madness' in Gothic fiction anyway, I think.

Incidentally, someone might wonder where the 'Gothic' elements are in 'The Listener:' first, Blackwood's typical obsession with the mysteries of architecture really just supplant a haunted castle with a boarding house, especially in his stupendously creepy use of staircases (something of a trademark, that, employed in others: 'The Empty House;' 'Keeping His Promise;' 'The Kit-Bag' (the last of which, another of my Blackwood favorites, is an all-out screamer!)); there is also a very Gothic handling of a 'mysterious disease,' which we, of course, discover the identity of in the very last word of the story. Chilling stuff...

By the by, do you find the story as creepy as I do, rank?

12veilofisis
Mai 19, 2011, 2:58 am

Oh, also, the above was originally a longer, more coherent post until my internet crashed. I re-typed it out from memory, so I think I missed a few other points I made in the original, but I'm too lazy to think about it anymore... :D

13alaudacorax
Mai 19, 2011, 7:08 am

#11 - By the by, do you find the story as creepy as I do, rank?

#7 - ... and into that pitch-black, lonely room...terrifying!

The idea of shutting himself into that room and then deliberately feeling round for whatever might be lurking in there ... well - that's got to be one of the creepiest ideas ever! And, now I think of it, I'm wondering what this, again, says about the diarist's mental health. Then again, he doesn't know where he got the courage, does it actually come from the ghost's influence?

14alaudacorax
Modifié : Mai 19, 2011, 8:15 am

I was sure veilofisis had already said the following somewhere, but I can't find it. Anyway ...

Does the story also play on contemporary male insecurities about threats to the status quo of gender boundaries - the 'new woman' and so on? There are hints here and there that the diarist is a little antagonistic towards women - "Women could not come between us", "... wasting time in dancing attendance upon women" - perhaps a little insecure about, and threatened by, them in the sense that he's a bit insecure in his masculinity, and then there's this threatening male presence with designs on his body!

ETA - It occurs to me that here and in 'The Horla' the main characters are both 'damsels in distress' in this sense. Very unsettling to male sensibilities - but how does it come across to the female reader? Also, I'm not sure if I see this as deliberate by Blackwood or an unconscious product of the contemporary male mindset.

Another ETA - I think I meant '- but how did it come across to the female reader?'

15LolaWalser
Mai 19, 2011, 10:41 am

Creeheheehepeeheheey stohohohory...!

I must say I guessed the punchline as soon as the leonine features were mentioned.

#11

That bit from the nightmare about the landlady and the Listener coming into his room on all fours--AAAAUGH!

Also, he got it. The narrator. Got leprosy. The cats KNOW.

16veilofisis
Mai 19, 2011, 7:05 pm

>14 alaudacorax:

I'm sure any story from the turn of the century will deal with certain gender concerns, but most of Blackwood's fiction (like Lovecraft's) seems to sort of neatly skip this issue by simply not including many female characters. In life, I think he was a considerably progressive man. But that doesn't mean his narrator is, of course; that's part of the freedom granted by an epistolary form...

>15 LolaWalser:

LOLA I HAD NEVER CONSIDERED THE NARRATOR GETTING LEPROSSSSY!!! CREEEEEEEEPIER THAN EVER NOW!! The cats MUST know!

17LolaWalser
Mai 19, 2011, 9:20 pm

You're welcome! I live to squick! Your friendly neighbourhood squicker, am I!

18veilofisis
Mai 20, 2011, 12:33 am

I had no idea what 'squick' meant, so I googled it. Annnnd now I realize it's a word I've been waiting for for a long, lonnng time....

19alaudacorax
Modifié : Mai 20, 2011, 6:07 am

#15 - must say I guessed the punchline as soon as the leonine features were mentioned. - I didn't - first reading I started to anticipate something like Merrick(?), the 'Elephant Man' - people staring and crowds following him home and all that. So the leprosy when it came ... actually, words fail me.

I haven't got round to reading it again since I read #15 (got sidetracked by Oliver Onions), but if it's right that adds a whole new level of creep - or ... um ... squick? I had been vaguely wondering what the cats were for (and thirteen of them, too) but I'd given up on them. Really need a re-read.

By the way, and rather off-topic, does anyone remember a short story where a doctor injects a man with leprosy because he's been carrying on with the doctor's wife, or the doctor suspects him of it, or something like that? I think I've just given away the denouement of the plot and I'm sorry for it, but it's been niggling at me since I first read this one. I think it was set in Paris.

20veilofisis
Mai 20, 2011, 8:36 am

>19 alaudacorax:

I'm not familiar with that story.

The first time I read 'The Listener' I, too, had this sort of 'Elephant Man' idea all the way up until the last sentence. And, like you, words failed me at that word: 'leper.' I was just...floored, immediately. It was too creepy for words.

I come back, again, to the narrator waking up in bed and finding that...thing...staring at itself in the vanity, and then turning around...ACH! That's still the creepiest image in the story for me, but the night-visits are also lingering terrors...and the bit with the landlady that Lola mentioned...

Whoo. Phantasmagoric; but there's a 'realism' (or whatever you want to call it) at the heart of 'The Listener' that just pushes it into another realm of freakiness... The pacing, too, is brilliant: as soon as you think Blackwood is going to be content to simply 'suggest' things with scattered clothes and the sensation of something 'listening' at a door, he goes and pulls out the fervid traipse upstairs and into that heart of darkness, and then...well, I've already covered some of the rest. It doesn't do well to discuss this story in anything other than broad terms when you're sitting alone in the dark with a light rain pattering at your window and someone in the next apartment giggling a bit too tremulously for comfort(!).

Yep. Still my favorite short story ever. I'm glad you all found it creepy. We should take a hack at 'The Wendigo' at some point, and probably something more esoteric like 'Keeping His Promise' or 'The Kit-Bag.' The latter I've only ever been able to find online, but I keep a print-out in my file. It's the only story I've ever done that with.

21brother_salvatore
Mai 20, 2011, 9:32 am

Still haven't got my copy yet to read, but hopefully over the weekend I'll be able to contribute a little to the conversation. I really like this group and all the cool, interesting, amazing stuff you all bring. Can't wait to dig in.

22veilofisis
Mai 20, 2011, 11:25 am

Oh no, though! I fear we may have ruined some of this for you! I hope you didn't read our spoilers... :(

I'm excited to hear what you think, though...

23brother_salvatore
Mai 20, 2011, 2:56 pm

I've been careful to avoid spoilers, so I think I'm good. :)

24veilofisis
Modifié : Mai 21, 2011, 11:55 pm

Thoughts on our next read: (we'd all still love to hear what you think, though, LA & Salvatore on 'The Listener,' so don't think we're skipping ahead of you! :)

I'm thinking one of the following:

'Green Tea' -- J. Sheridan Le Fanu
'The Minister's Black Veil' -- Nathaniel Hawthorne
'Rats' (or perhaps 'Canon Alberic's Scrapbook') -- M. R. James

I'm not sure I would consider the first story 'Gothic' in the strictest sense (which is, even then, pretty loose) of the word, but it IS eerie, and extremely well-known. The Hawthorne was on our list last round, and I'd still really like to give it a go. The third ('Rats') is my favorite M. R. James story; it's absolutely bizarre, a little unpolished, but yet still my favorite of his stories. It's just toooo weird. I suppose if we did a more Gothic James story, something like 'Canon Alberic's Scrapbook' would be fun, too, and totally canon...

Suggestions? Has anyone seen something they'd like to read together lately? I know some of you have some great collections...

25alaudacorax
Mai 22, 2011, 4:18 pm

As usual, I'm happy with any.

Looking at the beginning of 'Rats', I'm pretty sure I've read it at some point, but not the others. Don't remember that I've ever read any Nathaniel Hawthorne. It's probably decades since I read any Lefanu and I hardly remember any of him, but I do remember that I thought he was one of the scariest and best, and I've been meaning for years to having a good crack at his stuff, so I'm looking forward to that one.

26veilofisis
Mai 22, 2011, 4:59 pm

I think 'Green Tea' is Le Fanu's most famous story. I like one called 'Schalken the Painter' quite a bit. I've been meaning to reread Uncle Silas. If you feel like giving it (Uncle Silas) a go any time soon, let me know, and maybe we can read it together.

Let's do the Hawthorne first, and we'll set the other two to follow. Sound like a plan? I'd really like to read all three...

27veilofisis
Mai 22, 2011, 5:01 pm

I have to add that the last sentence or two of Uncle Silas is one of the most beautiful pieces of writing I've ever read...I'm looking forward to my reread just thinking about it! I also get to do my gorgeous Folio Society volume this time, instead of my ancient Penguin paperback...

28brother_salvatore
Mai 22, 2011, 7:57 pm

I think I haven't read "The Minister's Black Veil" since I was a teenager, so I practically remember nothing about it. Should be fun to read.

I hope down the line we'll return to Hawthorne and read "Young Goodman Brown." It's such an mysterious story that I keep going back to over the years.

29veilofisis
Mai 22, 2011, 8:42 pm

>28 brother_salvatore:

Yes, we must do that one!

30alaudacorax
Mai 23, 2011, 7:44 am

#26 - I first came across 'Schalken the Painter' in a televised version.

I don't remember much about it (according to IMDb this was thirty-three years ago), but it must have been quite good because I think it was what introduced me to Lefanu in print. I remember being quite intrigued a while later to come across the paintings of the real Schalken, which added an extra piquancy. So I have fond memories of 'Schalken The Painter' - I don't know if 'fond memories' is the right phrase for this kind of literature but, for want of a better phrase ...

Yes, good idea on the Uncle Silas thing. I'm a bit 'overbooked' at the moment but, as soon as I've got a couple of current reads out of the way, I was intending to start a reading project of working my way through the 'Key Works' list in Punter and Byron's The Gothic (aargh! - I'm giving up trying to get that touchstone to work). Uncle Silas is about half-way down the list but I suppose there's no reason why I should stick to chronological order.

So, 'The Minister's Black Weil', then? I haven't got round to any of them yet - I'll have a go this evening and start with that one (also, I still haven't got round to a re-reading of 'The Listener' with Lola's #15 in mind - must do that).

31veilofisis
Mai 23, 2011, 8:31 am

Hey! I'm on the same 'reading project!' I decided to give them all a read, even the ones I've read before, so that's pretty funny that you're going to be doing the same thing. So far this year I've reread Vathek, Dracula, The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner, Melmoth the Wanderer, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I took on Wuthering Heights and The Turn of the Screw for the first time. I'm not going to be reading the novels that occur in the second half of the 20th Century. I suppose The Picture of Dorian Gray should be added to their list, though, along with Rebecca (just finished that!) and a couple others. I'm also dubious as to whether I'd consider Caleb Williams a 'key work'...

Oh well...maybe I'll compose my own list. :D Seems to me there should be about a half-dozen short stories on that list, as well as some poetry, but I understand that the editors were probably only thinking of longer works.

Interesting coincidence!

Let me know when you're ready for Uncle Silas. I think I'll read Frankenstein in the interim. I've never read it. (I did most of the rereads first, since they seem to be more esoteric and a few of them I consider 'all-time favorites.')

So, yes, 'The Minister's Black Veil.' I'll get a new thread going. Anyone still reading/rereading 'The Listener,' please continue to post! :)

(Excuse the rambling. I'm feeling pretty languid this morning...)

32alaudacorax
Mai 24, 2011, 6:21 pm

#15 - Also, he got it. The narrator. Got leprosy. The cats KNOW.

I've just been re-reading it and I think you may be right. There's a hint of it, at least. There are clues throughout that his health is deteriorating - especially the bit towards the end about him vomiting blood.

On a general note - I think this repays repeated reading. I seem to pick up more little nuances each time. Possibly giving more questions than answers, though. For instance, are there are indications that the diarist and his sister come from a fairly wealthy background; which, as the male child, he shoud have been heir to - so why is he in poverty now?

I still can't get an angle on the bit about the people staring at him in the reading room, though. Is it to indicate that he's starting to look really ill; or, as we said earlier, is it in his imagination and a sign of his imbalance?

33veilofisis
Modifié : Mai 24, 2011, 6:46 pm

I still can't get an angle on the bit about the people staring at him in the reading room, though. Is it to indicate that he's starting to look really ill; or, as we said earlier, is it in his imagination and a sign of his imbalance?

I'm sure it's a little of both. I think 'nervous' types (I don't think the narrator goes 'crazy,' precisely) have a habit of taking things out of context or exaggerating their importance/impetus/motivation. For example, Joe (who's a little 'off') walks into a shop and everyone looks up. Joe turns this into some kind of creepy thing, when in reality they all looked up because the bell rang on the door, and that's just what people do... If Joe wants to think people are staring at him for some malicious purpose, that's what he's going to see. One of the benefits of writing within the 'diary' mode is that you can pass off an unreliable narrator without giving him or her too many reasons to be unreliable (if that makes any sense whatsoever).

I agree that the story rewards with multiple readings. I've probably read it a dozen times in the last few years, and, as I said a few times before, it gets better every time. It also gets a little more difficult to fathom. It's eerieness is not its only strength; Blackwood's personal mysticism, which is otherwise 'turned off' for a pure 'horror story' like this one, drips very subtly through the ending, and leaves a lot of questions. Is the story a take on botched reincarnation? Dreams and dreaming? The 'other hauntings' Blackwood explores in other short stories? I have no idea anymore, even after the dozen readings. At this point all analysis seems to leave me: the story mostly just entertains now, and mostly because it's just plain chilling (and, rare in terror fiction, the chill doesn't wane, even though I know literally EXACTLY what's coming).

I think comparisons can be made most accurately with other Blackwood stories about visitations and apartment buildings. 'Keeping His Promise' is one you should give a read in the very near future, rankamateur. It shares some qualities (technique-wise) with 'The Listener,' and is pretty spooky. It's also got an underlying 'mystic' thread that weaves through it with a kind of silver indefinability (is that even a word?). It's nowhere near as disturbing as 'The Listener,' but the chills are certainly there. I quite like it.

In other news, what time is it in the UK? Midnight? Maybe you should give 'Keeping His Promise' a read right now! It would be perfect timing. :D

34alaudacorax
Modifié : Mai 25, 2011, 7:34 am

#33 - Heh! I'm getting myself quite confused here - Monterey time, English Midlands time and LibraryThing time are quite widely separated (actually, I've long been meaning to put some sort of time zone comparison page on my favorites bar or somewhere - another of those things I never seem to get round to). If I remember right, though, I think I went to bed after my last post.

Anyway, I'll certainly explore more Blackwood. I think he's going on my lookout list for a nice 'collected' or 'complete' edition (and an Ambrose Bierce ... and an Oliver Onions ... and an ... oh dear - bankruptcy!). And I'll probably hunt up an online 'Keeping His Promise' over the next couple of evenings.

It's occured to me that I've probably read and forgotten a lot of these short stories in the dim and distant past; which, I suspect, indicates that one's local library is not the best source for short stories. Taking out an anthology or collected stories and reading the book straight through in a week or two, like a novel, I was probably not giving the individual stories (of the best authors, at any rate) the care and attention they deserve. I'm beginning to suspect that it's only since joining this group that I've been reading short stories properly.

To get back on topic, this story is a case in point. My appreciation of it has really grown with repeated readings and a bit of 'pondering'. I suspect Blackwood is deliberately giving readers opportunities for different interpretations and 'open ends' to fill in themselves - in other words, of course, intending the story to be given multiple readings and plenty of pondering over.

35veilofisis
Modifié : Mai 25, 2011, 7:48 am

I highly recommend Dover's Best Ghost Stories of Algernon Blackwood. It's paperback, unfortunately, but it's printed on great paper and is pretty sturdy (and extremely cheap). The selection is really spot on, and includes all the favorites. For more esoteric stories (and I mean that in like, three senses considering Blackwood!) I'd suggest Tales of the Mysterious and Macabre and Tales of the Uncanny and Supernatural which are no longer in print; they are, however, relatively easy to get a hold of second-hand for perhaps $10-15, though they often date back to the 1960s and are on occasion a little the worse for the wear... One of my Blackwood favorites, 'The Kit-Bag,' doesn't seem to be available at all in print, but is available online.

Of course, Centipede Press puts out a $250 (!!!!) near-'collected' Blackwood that looks enticing, but is, for the moment, ENTIRELY out of reach. Also, though he's my favorite writer, I have some concerns with 'collecting' his work: for every knock-out, ab-fab story he produces he writes two or three bizarre, unfathomable, far-too-personal works that at best escape even a seasoned readers' analysis and at worst are just...boring, especially when he eschews the supernatural for other themes. That said, I'm beginning to appreciate some of his more spiritually-exhausting stories (like 'The Wings of Horus'); those are an enitrely different realm. I'm talking about the BORING stuff. Another notch in 'Best Ghost Stories' belt is that it only contains one clunker, and I'll let you find it on your own. :D The rest are purely enjoyable and often profound. Again, I highly recommend starting with that collection. And, as I said, it's perfect for a budget!

Gee, I seem to have gone on quite a bit...not surprising, of course, but I didn't realize. Good morning/afternoon! :)

36alaudacorax
Modifié : Mai 26, 2011, 9:34 am

#35 - Of course, Centipede Press puts out a $250 (!!!!) near-'collected' Blackwood ...

It's £182 over here - which is nearer $300 - ouch!

37veilofisis
Mai 26, 2011, 11:29 am

OY!

38alaudacorax
Mai 31, 2011, 7:58 am

#34, #35 - I didn't realise what I was asking for in a 'collected' or 'complete' Blackwood. Apart from the fact that nobody seems to know how many short stories he actually wrote, I'd probably struggle to lift any complete edition.

Anyway, trying to make sense of all the collections published in his lifetime (a sizeable proportion of which were 'selections from previous collections') made my head spin and the Centipede Press's prices are a bit too rich for my blood so - I've gone with your advice and ordered the Dover.

39alaudacorax
Juin 7, 2011, 11:22 am

#26, #31 - The postie delivered my Folio Society Uncle Silas today. I was going to get a Penguin or Oxford Classics to have all the notes, but I found I could have this for the same price or less (you can see it's used but it's in very good condition) and I couldn't resist. You were right, veilofisis (#27), it's a gorgeous book.

So, veil, if you still want to read it together, any time you're ready ...

40veilofisis
Juin 7, 2011, 5:31 pm

I'm ready! I'm about one or two days from done on my current two novels and in the middle of dress rehearsals at my theatre, so why don't we start reading this weekend??

41alaudacorax
Juin 8, 2011, 11:23 am

40 - Great, I'll look forward to it.

#38 - I've gone with your advice and ordered the Dover.
Last night I read your three choices for the next reading thread - http://www.librarything.com/topic/117005#2744611 - and Blackwood's 'The Empty House' from the Dover. For sheer scariness, plain and simple, I think the latter tops the four! Creepy!

I'm actually feeling quite enthusiastic about thoroughly exploring Blackwood (or re-exploring - a lot of descriptions I'm reading online faintly ring bells) - even some of your caveats in #35 are whetting my appetite. So many books - so little time.

42veilofisis
Juin 8, 2011, 4:48 pm

I'm glad you're enjoying Blackwood! He's my favorite, and I don't think I ever get tired of rereading him...

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