a couple creepy recs

[intertribal]

The Washington Post asked some horror writers for scary story recs, and I read a couple that were online (I'd already read - and agreed with - Elizabeth Hand's recommendation, Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wall-Paper", and Charlaine Harris' recommendation, The Haunting of Hill House - oh yeah, and Dracula, of course). They were both really, really interesting, so here they are:

• "The Monkey's Paw" by W. W. Jacobs (1902).  Jonathan Carroll's recommendation.  Apparently this is a famous story, but I had never read it (I am freakishly uneducated in this regard), and now I'm glad I have!  
• "The Specialist's Hat" by Kelly Link (1998).  Joe Hill's recommendation.  I've never read Kelly Link either (I know, shame) but whoa.  WHOA THAR.  I'm going to have to read this one a few more times.

Anne Rice's rec, "Count Magnus" by M. R. James, is a little too traditional and borderline Rosemary's Baby-ish for my taste (much trotting out of "the occult").  China Mieville's rec, "Sredni Vashtar" by H. H. Munro, is a neat little piece but not especially scary or wow-y, in my opinion.

Comments

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Going to definitely check out "The Specialist's Hat."

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Oh, it was very cool! And yeah, a few more reads, just to get it all. Ve-ry cool.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

I know, right? I'm pretty sure that stayed with me all night.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

Absolutely! All that snaky womany disappeary stuff. Loved the ghost.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

So, you must help me. Did the babysitter-ghost kill the little girls at the end? I'm assuming yes, right? And then they all went into the chimney and hid from the father? Was that the father? And now he's been bit by a snake and is going to end up like the poet? Or just die?

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

LOL!! I was going to ask you the same thing about the babysitter! But yeah, that's how I read it. Only I'm thinking that the distinction between Dead and dead is that with Dead you're a ghost.

I'm seeing it like this: the poet got into Bad Stuff as a whaler, came home, married, then cursed his wife to death when she cast a wandering eye--but then she, as a spirit, got him back in the end. And I'm thinking it's her spirit that then, as a snake, kills the twins' dad--maybe seeing too much similarity between their dad and her husband.

How the poet's daughter/babysitter died, though, I'm not clear on. Maybe it's a decision, just committing to being Dead, kind of like the twins do? And also I'm not sure what it signifies that the hat bites her but lets itself be worn by Claire...

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

Only I'm thinking that the distinction between Dead and dead is that with Dead you're a ghost.

OHHHHHHHHHHH. Yeah, that makes much more sense. Not sure how the babysitter/daughter died but she says The Specialist took her dad away, and she hid in the chimney - so maybe she accidentally killed herself somehow? Or the father killed her, and then the Specialist/Dead Mother killed him?

The hat, I felt, was the piece that didn't fit as well. It was like, too much. You already have one creepy ass "woman in the woods", then you've got the babysitter-ghost, and I'm pretty sure the groundskeeper was also a ghost (transparent, said that he got locked in the tool room??!, he found the babysitter). Although the hat seemed to be the origin of all the Bad Stuff...

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

There were definitely a few more balls up in the air than are easy to keep track of. The locked-in-the-tool shed thing made me go Huh? Because then I'm like, Okay, when, and by whom, and why? How does that affect the backstory? In the present, does he have to get locked up for the ghost to be able to come in and be the babysitter? But that seemed unnecessary to me, since I just assumed that he would send the ghost/babysitter. But maybe not?

And that's two types of locked-up, because we also have the ghost daughter being locked up in the attic, and when you have two of something, you start looking for similarities, and I couldn't quite find them. I could see that the crazy poet might lock his daughter up so she wouldn't bother him while he was doing his black magic.... or maybe he had other sinister ideas in mind? But I just keep coming back to wondering why Groundskeeper Willie, there, needed to be locked up.

[intertribal.livejournal.com]

LOL Groundskeeper Willie. Tangent: have you seen the Treehouse of Horror episode where Willie is Freddy Krueger and he manifests as a giant spider monster and other things? That was actually my first exposure to Freddy Krueger.

Anyway: I have no clue. It says that he can't stay in the house at night. Babysitter confirms this. And it doesn't explicitly say that he sends her either: "Then their father couldn't find Mr. Coeslak, but the babysitter showed up precisely at seven o'clock." So did the babysitter lock him in the tool room? Does he become a ghost at night and automatically get locked up at night, and that's why he can't come in the house? WHO KNOWS.

[asakiyume.livejournal.com]

I did see that Treehouse of Horror! ("Do not touch Willie--sounds good to me," says Homer, turning up the thermostat.) I had seen (and been exhausted/terrified by) one Nightmare on Elm Street movie prior to that.

One little detail I liked in this story was how people seemed more ghostly inside the house (especially the *mothers* on the tours).