THE DEEP ONES: "Yellow and Red" by Tanith Lee

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THE DEEP ONES: "Yellow and Red" by Tanith Lee

2housefulofpaper
Mar 19, 2021, 6:10 pm

Back to The Weird for this one.

3elenchus
Mar 21, 2021, 11:37 pm

4alaudacorax
Mar 22, 2021, 7:22 am

Oo! Tanith Lee! Excited, and definitely taking part in this thread. And it's one I haven't read yet. I've read lots of her, yet she was so prolific I've only read a fraction. I think it would take a lifetime to read all of her, or obsession. And, as luck would have it, I have 'The Weird' (not half read, yet).

5paradoxosalpha
Mar 22, 2021, 8:24 am

I finally got my copy of The Weird yesterday.

6elenchus
Modifié : Mar 23, 2021, 9:23 am

Lee is quoted regarding this story, "This is one of my own tales that appalls me, still." More spoiler-ish comments are at the weirdfictionreview.com link in MISCELLANY above.

7alaudacorax
Modifié : Mar 24, 2021, 9:48 am

>6 elenchus: - An odd comment, that, considering the number of horror stories she'd written—interesting.

As it's the first day I'll try not to give any spoilers here, but ...

I'm puzzled and intrigued with the (first) narrative voice: I suspected from quite early on a bit of mischief on Tanith Lee's part.

At first I thought she might be poking a little fun at some of Lovecraft's* less PC attitudes, though further reading didn't seem quite to confirm that; though her description of the apparent source of the trouble was quite Lovecraftian.

But there were a couple of the names: the Martyce's 'treasure' is named Gold (are users outside the UK or below a certain age familiar with the use of 'treasure' for a woman who came in daily to cook and clean?), and the current Martyce's love interest is Lucy Wright (Miss Right, geddit?), both hinting that the tale is not to be taken too seriously. And I don't think Lee intends us to find the narrator sympathetic: his words are supercilious toward Mrs Gold and Lucy (in whom he doesn't seem to have inspired really serious attachment), and he's probably an unreliable narrator—do we really believe his 'I am not fearful by nature' in its context? He struck me all through as edging on being a comic character of a Pooterish sort. Given all this, I thought the twist in the tail quite close to being a punchline.

As I said, though, I'm puzzled—I'm really not sure.

I liked the way Lee played variations on the two colours to add different nuances. I've always found her wonderful at putting visual images in my mind.

ETA - * Whenever the word 'eldritch' crops up I have a tendency to think someone's been reading Lovecraft. Here I took it to be a signal.

8AndreasJ
Mar 24, 2021, 10:02 am

It seemed to me the narrator underestimated Lucy's attachment; given what she writes in the final bit, he could already have had the wife and family he claimed to want if he'd only conjured up the courage to ask.

Speaking of courage, his "solution" to his predicament was hardly that of a brave man either.

I was whole unaware of that use of 'treasure'.

9elenchus
Mar 24, 2021, 11:26 am

Also unaware of that term, appreciate you sharing it. I took it as an idiosyncratic thing rather than a common term. I missed the "Miss Right" reference, entirely! That's fun.

The narrator's voice was raising flags for me, too, but I think for different reasons. Primarily there seemed to be an interesting shift in verb tense, and I could never decide if it was simply conversational, or if the story was being brought into the present in some way. Never resolved that.

Which brings me to the narrative bone I tend to worry at in these stories: who is the editor who collected Martyce's diary entries and brought them together with Lucy's letter? I don't think it's important, merely an unavoidable narrative element given the epistolary approach. Still I always come back to it, and it certainly happened here.

I really liked this story. As the Vandermeer's noted, there's certainly an aspect of MR James here, for me both with the use of photographs & letters, and the appearance of a vicar. Lee does really well evoking the increasing dread, the twist at the end isn't a surprise so much as bringing to a climax what we knew was coming. I actually felt Martyce's description of the creature in the photograph of the boy was more impactful than the final description of his own photograph described by Lucy, but it all worked.

10paradoxosalpha
Modifié : Mar 24, 2021, 11:42 am

>9 elenchus:

I thought the verb tense shifts were just verisimilitude in diary entries. I know my own tend to wander like that.

Thanks for your notes on the M.R. James comparisons, which I think get the matter right. I was having a little trouble comparing this story to "Casting the Runes," because I think the James is a far more complex tale.

11housefulofpaper
Mar 25, 2021, 8:50 pm

I'd somehow got the impression years ago that modern writers had dispensed with the artifice of an "editor into whose hands various papers had fallen" and who has "reconstructed the story for the benefits of the public" and I always accept unquestioningly (and sometimes naively, I admit) the story being presented. An "editor" or narrator pointing out the ironies of the situation would feel more than a little Dickensian, and self-effacing author lets the reader feel all the cleverer for finding these things for themselves. I suppose we can always imagine a helpful psychic obtaining all this material for us from the Akashic records.

One way in which this story differs from M R James's practice is the element of emotion, or romance - more on Lucy's part than Gordon's. That's where the ironic element comes in. A man non-committal about relationships drained and driven to suicide by a spirit or demon "it's aim-things round his throat, and its face pressed close to his, as if it loved him and would never let go". Would it be so deadly to a different family I wonder, one not made up of repressed middle class, mid-20th century English people?

In M. R. James' stories the protagonists usually emerge more-or-less unscathed from their experiences. It occurred to me that this story followed a couple of the BBC's 1970s adaptations in making the demon harder to shake off. (After Paxton dies in "A Warning to the Curious", something climbs into the train carriage with the departing Dr Black. In the new final scene of "The Treasure of Abbot Thomas", a convalescent Rev. Somerton does not after all escape retribution).

12housefulofpaper
Mar 25, 2021, 8:52 pm

>11 housefulofpaper:
a helpful psychic obtaining all this material for us from the Akashic records.
Like in "The Warder of Knowledge", of course!

13rjbd
Mar 27, 2021, 10:56 am

First time with Tanith Lee, and I wasn’t exactly blown away. I think taking the aforementioned comic attitude to Gordon is probably the best angle, since I was genuinely glad to see him get his comeuppance at the end. However, that comic tone somewhat weakens the creepy atmosphere that Lee otherwise works towards, especially with the photo descriptions.

I did notice the MR James vibes (in a good way), and did enjoy the Gold/Write wordplay noted above.

14paradoxosalpha
Mar 27, 2021, 4:52 pm

I've read quite a bit of Tanith Lee's work, and I don't think this story is especially representative. She's definitely working in a chosen genre mode here, departing from the sort of thing she does in her novels.

15AndreasJ
Mar 27, 2021, 5:56 pm

>11 housefulofpaper:

I was a bit surprised at seeing the family described as “middle class”, but I guess the English definition is rather more extended upwards than what I’m used to.

Acc’d the vicar, the curse breaks down strong people more slowly than the weak. Apparently Gordon is weak indeed to have the critter crawling on him after just days in the house.

16paradoxosalpha
Modifié : Mar 27, 2021, 7:09 pm

>15 AndreasJ:

"Middle class" (originally, at least) doesn't mean economically average. It means the social class in the "middle" between the aristocracy and the working class. So it's generally a wealthy class: bourgeoisie. I think that's the usage we're seeing here.

(The American definition tends to be "extended downwards" in my experience, to include just about anyone who owns a home.)

17alaudacorax
Mar 27, 2021, 7:39 pm

>14 paradoxosalpha:

Yes, I thought it was rather atypical; which was partly why I was looking for it to be some sort of parody or satire, but now I'm even less sure of that than when I wrote >7 alaudacorax:. If I'd been told it was a very early work, rather than something from '98, I'd have been quite ready to believe it.

18AndreasJ
Mar 28, 2021, 4:36 am

>16 paradoxosalpha:

Originally I think rather between the aristocracy and the peasantry, there not being much of a working class in the 18C when the expression was coined.

It’s probably relevant to the difference in Swedish usage that the Swedish nobility stretched much further down the social scale than the English aristocracy. (But yes, I can also be tripped up by the American usage to include people who seem obviously working class to me.)