Buddy read: "Carnacki, the Ghost Finder"

[Marc-Antoine]

And see, I for one really enjoyed the 4th adventure, and in part for the same reasons you did not. The mistery I am left with does not bother me, but has me thinking about the story and the possibilities even more.

[Shawn]

Canavan wrote: "Reading these stories in a relatively concentrated burst has perhaps made me more attuned to Hodgson's stylistic quirks. I noticed, for example, that Carnacki is always asking listeners questions such as "Am I clear?", "Can you understand?", and "Do you see?". "

I love this little detail, myself - it helps re-assert the frame story while also giving Carnacki a half-gregarious, half-egotistical air.

[Ken B]

Shawn wrote: "Canavan wrote: "Reading these stories in a relatively concentrated burst has perhaps made me more attuned to Hodgson's stylistic quirks. I noticed, for example, that Carnacki is always asking liste..."

I never noticed this before. Well, I see it now. It is annoying!

[Ken B]

"The Horse of the Invisible"

I liked the setup on this one. The narrator arrives early. Carnacki hands him a stack of haunting photos and then refuses to discuss the case until the others have arrived and dinner had been served. I liked the hint up front. It added to the anticipation.

It just degraded from there.

(view spoiler)[I recall in the discussion above, someone referring to a previous story as Scooby Doo-ish. I felt that most adequately described this story. There was a lot of confused running around by a bunch of people that accomplished nothing, a lot of lights going out at inopportune times and a lot of un-aimed gunfire going on in confined spaces. All the story was lacking was a Scooby Snack break and a "you meddling kids" ending (and the ending wasn't that far off the mark).

The ending really was no ending at all. A portion of the issue was attributed to Beaumont's friend, Parsket, as improbable as it seemed, and the remainder potentially blamed on something more ethereal, but not really, maybe, we just don't know. (hide spoiler)]

Unimpressed!

[Ken B]

BTW, I found the other three stories. See the post at the top of the thread for the link.

[Ken B]

*******************The Searcher of the End House****************

This one started out good and then, in what has become the rule, fell flat on its face.

(view spoiler)[I liked this one. The haunted cottage, knocking, slamming doors, the ghosts of the woman and the child. It had the ingredients. And all the way up to the resolution of the haunting, I was hooked.

Then Hodgson did not just let me off the hook, he threw me rudely away!

Once it was confirmed that Tobias was at the root of the issue, Hodgson writes "He would not give his reason for entering the house".

The shining metal when the ghost of the child was near, "The cause, naturally I do not know" and "neither do I know why I, alone was able to see the shining".

Why Carnacki couldn't see the woman and why the others couldn't see the child, "I can't explain that".

And in summary as to why the haunting existed at all, he went into some basics of stillborn babies, etc but finishes with "The thing is beyond further discussion; for it is futile to attempt to discuss a thing, to any purpose, of which one has a knowledge so fragmentary as this".

About the well, "Don't ask me who made the well entrance or the little stairway, for I don't know".

It almost seems that Hodgson forgot that he was the author of these stories and as such was entitled to a degree of creative license.

Think how much more interesting this story would have been if Hodgson had just fleshed out some of the details. (hide spoiler)]

Again, unimpressed!!!

I am going to suggest to a couple of authors going back and re-writing these short stories. They have a lot of unfilled potential.

[Ken B]

Another observation on "The Searcher of the End House"....

(view spoiler)[No pentacle chalked on the floor this time! (hide spoiler)]

[Ken B]

BTW, "The Invisible Thing", the last in the original six Carnacki stories, was the first that I read years ago, the one that got me interested in reading the others. I really enjoyed it. I am re-reading the story. I hope I don't see the same things that we have seen in the other stories and ruin the memory.

[Ken B]

********************"The Invisible Thing"********************

As I stated before, "The Invisible Thing" was the first Carnacki that I read and the story that got me interested in reading the others. I was afraid after reading all of the others and dissecting them and finding fault, that I was going to be disappointed with what I remembered to be a good story.

After re-reading the story, I have decided that I was not wrong in my first impression of this story. It is a good story. Many of the flaws of the previous stories were not as evident and the conclusion of the story was solid.

I wish the others had been as well written.

[Marc-Antoine]

Ken, I apologize I got sucked into Doctor Sleep, and am now just getting back to Carnacki. I have to agree with your comments on the Searcher of the End House. I feel cheated out of a story... So much promise, but feels like unfinished work!

[Marc-Antoine]

The invisible Solution

Simple solution to extraordinary problem (view spoiler)[ destroy the damn dagger (hide spoiler)]

[Marc-Antoine]

Yep, finished in a proper fashion, enjoyed the stories overall, although they did seem repetitive, especially the first 4. The fifth story felt rushed and incomplete and the final was awesome.

Ken, I truly enjoyed this buddy read, and very much appreciated your comments. Thank you for suggesting these stories, for I did have a great time reading them.

[Canavan]

Discussion of "The Searcher of the End House" and "The Thing Invisible".

(view spoiler)["Searcher", like the previously discussed "The Horse of the Invisible" invokes a kind of dual solution to its central haunting in which both rational and supernatural forces are at play. The introductory portion of the story is at least semi-competently rendered (although it seemed a bit perfunctory and not as well done as in other Carnacki stories we've already read), but then the whole enterprise falls apart in what has become typical Hodgson fashion. As Ken detailed in his message, the Captain Tobias/smuggling elements are not well explained (and don't make much sense to boot) and ghosts of the woman and child are not really explained at all. This was for me the least satisfactory of the Carnacki stories read to date.

Sadly, I didn't find "The Thing Invisible" to be much of an improvement. The description of the haunting isn't very interesting -- there's barely an attempt by Hodgson to sketch out a background for his so-called ghostly dagger. The description of Carnacki's terror in the chapel is overlong and dull. And there is almost nothing at all to foreshadow the big reveal when it finally arrives (yet another Scooby-Doo conclusion). (hide spoiler)]

"The Searcher of the End House" (1910). 1.0* (of 5).
"The Thing Invisible" (1912). 1.5*

[Ken B]

I am going to go ahead and read the other three stories per the schedule in the first couple of posts in the thread (links are posted there as well). I will be posting my thoughts here. Join me if you can.

[Canavan]

Ken wrote:

I am going to go ahead and read the other three stories per the schedule in the first couple of posts in the thread (links are posted there as well). I will be posting my thoughts here. Join me if you can.

I'll be joining in, Ken. I'm fairly certain I haven't read any of these final three before and I'm especially interested in "The Hog" which many connoisseurs rank fairly high in the Carnacki cannon.

I also wanted to add that, although most of my comments to date have been largely negative, I've truly enjoyed this opportunity to go through Hodgson's Carnacki stories and reassess them. Good suggestion for a buddy read, Ken.

[Jon Recluse]

I think you'll find "The Hog" very enjoyable.

[Ken B]

I'm with you Caravan. While I have not necessarily enjoyed all of the stories, I have loved the whole Carnacki set-up. I think it has a great potential if other authors would pick it up and run with it, like William Meikle has.

[Ken B]

********************"The Haunted 'Jarvee'"************************

The Jarvee is an old sailing vessel and as such, this story is full of nautical terms.

I think again, Hodgson builds up a good story but again, fails to deliver.

(view spoiler)[At least this time he attempts to explain the source of the haunting but then also gives himself an out by stating that his theory is just based upon the known and "the vast unknown it is vain to speculate in a brief chatter like this."

I did note one other curious difference between this story and the others. As Carnacki relies on his almost ever present pentacle, he does not allow those within its protection to smoke, as striking a match might provide light rays that are "paths to certain of the forces". In other stories, smoking was not only allowed within the pentacle but seemed a very acceptable way to pass the time. (hide spoiler)]

[Ken B]

*********************"The Find"********************

This is the shortest so far of the Carnacki stories and the one that is least Carnacki-ish. This is more a short mystery a la Sherlock Holmes than a supernatural mystery.

A second copy of a rare book is discovered. Carnacki is faced with two "certainties". First, that only one copy of was ever printed. And second, that another copy has come to light. Carnacki takes it upon himself to either prove the second book's authenticity or to prove it a fraud.

This short story was a so-so Sherlock Holmes-style story but did nothing to advance the Carnacki brand.

[Karl]

Ken wrote: ""The Horse of the Invisible"

I liked the setup on this one. The narrator arrives early. Carnacki hands him a stack of haunting photos and then refuses to discuss the case until the others have arr..."

Horse & Hound : I've only been able to get hold of two of The Carnacki stories, both in collections that compares various protagonists, (rather unfavuorable, one must say,) to Sherlock Holmes. I'm sorry to say that compared to "The Hound of the Baskervilles", I find " The Horse of the Invisible" to be somewhat lacking...

[Canavan]

Ken wrote:

Horse & Hound : I've only been able to get hold of two of The Carnacki stories, both in collections that compares various protagonists, (rather unfavuorable, one must say,) to Sherlock Holmes. I'm sorry to say that compared to "The Hound of the Baskervilles", I find " The Horse of the Invisible" to be somewhat lacking...

Apologies in advance if this comes across as nitpicky, but I wonder if this is really a fair comparison. Don't misunderstand -- I had a lot of problems with Hodgson's "The Horse of the Invisible". But I can't help but feel that you're setting the bar rather high when you're comparing a mystery story with a classic such as Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles. It's sort of like concluding that Fifty Shades of Grey is bad -- not because E. L. James is a poor writer -- but because it doesn't compare favorably to Wuthering Heights.

[Shawn]

While I'm not reading along fully, I have been following the conversation and thought I'd excerpt my short comments on "House In The Laurels" and "Horse of The Invisible" from my reviews of Irish Tales of Terror and Ghostly, Grim and Gruesome:

William Hope Hodgson also shows up with another of his adventures of Carnacki, the ghost finder - an occult detective in the Sherlock Holmes mold. Unfortunately, I always liked the idea of Carnacki (a ghost-buster operating with an arsenal of Western Hermetic Ritual Magick and "electric" technology) more than the execution, and this tale - "The House In The Laurels" - is more of the same (perhaps even more disappointing because the resolution seems like an obligated "twist" that eventually must occur in a series in which an occult investigator applies rationality to every haunting).

******

I've written before (in my review of Irish Tales of Terror) about my conflicted relationship with William Hope Hodgson's occult detective Carnacki (and about my conflicted relationship with the figure of the occult detective in general, for the Jules De Grandin story in American Fantastic Tales:Terror and the Uncanny from Poe to the Pulps - more on this in a later review, I'm sure). Unfortunately, the same problem I had with the story in IRISH TALES OF TERROR reappears here. Carnacki is a Sherlock Holmes of the occult, investigating and defusing reports of hauntings using his vast knowledge of occult lore, inventions of his own (like the marvelous electric pentagram!) and a detective's eye for rational clues and details. In "The Horse of the Invisible", Carnacki tells us (these stories always follow a modified Holmesian formula where our narrator visits the famed occult detective - the better to inform us with effusive praise about how great he is - and then Carnacki narrates to him his current adventure) about a particularly nasty haunting at an ancestral home (he's pretty beat up when we meet him) involving a family curse on the first born female, who has always been killed/trampled by a gigantic ghostly horse before she can marry.

Carnacki is an odd character to read. There's things I like about him - he's fallible (and thus not pompous) and he doesn't bloviate endlessly (or at least, not too often) on the author's pet theories of supernatural phenomena - in fact, Carnacki will, just as likely, refer to or institute some spell and not explain anything about it. He even occasionally has flashes of character (Hodgson has a nice stylistic touch of having Carnacki ask rhetorical questions of the narrator/reader to underline a point) but, in truth, he's generally flat and colorless - his assured knowledge (even though he may be wrong about particulars) unfortunately never allows the threats to become too personal. There's a bigger problem, though, which I will explain in a spoiler: (view spoiler)[It was seemingly very important to Hodgson (perhaps out of a desire not to feed into credulous fads of the time like Spiritualism) to have Carnacki come up against occasional threats which deduction proved were not supernatural. This was the problem with "The House In The Laurels" in IRISH TALES OF TERROR (in which the phenomena was, jinkies!, smugglers covering up their actions) and having a formula like that to uphold, it was inevitable there would be a story like "The Horse of the Invisible", in which the phenomena are also faked, but there's a touch of the dubious supernatural to some unanswered questions. In the end, it's an unsatisfying cheat of a rationalist ending, neither likely (the suggested way it was pulled off seems extremely unlikely) nor wholly ghostly. (hide spoiler)] Which is a shame, because in specific, the scenes and descriptions of the titanic, barreling, invisible equine are powerful and upsetting. Hodgson really captures the sense of a malignant, physical threat that can't be seen, and how genuinely frightening that would be. So, a mixed tale.

[Ken B]

Karl wrote: "I've only been able to get hold of two of The Carnacki stories..."

Links to free copies of all of the stories are in the first couple of posts in this thread.

Karl wrote: "I'm sorry to say that compared to "The Hound of the Baskervilles", I find " The Horse of the Invisible" to be somewhat lacking... ..."

Agreed! And I'm not sure that "somewhat lacking" even begins to cover the gap between the two. Hodgson was certainly not the talent that Doyle was.

[Ken B]

Shawn wrote: "While I'm not reading along fully, I have been following the conversation and thought I'd excerpt my short comments on "House In The Laurels" and "Horse of The Invisible" from my reviews of Irish T..."

You came to many of the same conclusions that we did.

[Canavan]

Discussion of "The Find"

This was, as Ken indicated, relatively short, so I read through it over lunch today. I probably will not get to the other story for this week, "The Haunted Jarvee", until tomorrow or Thursday.

(view spoiler)["The Find" stands out as a bit of an oddity in the Carnacki tales we have read to date. Although true that some previous stories have in the end invoked non-supernatural explanations of the mystery at issue, such mysteries at least initially strongly suggest the possibility that the underlying cause is, to use one of Hodgson's favorite terms, "ab-normal". That is certainly not the case with "The Find" -- there is no hint of the supernatural at play at any time in this tale; rather, it is a fairly straightforward armchair mystery in which the solution is based in reality.

Considered as such, it's not a terrible story; but neither is it, in my opinion, a very good one. Hodgson has, in effect, constructed a bit of locked-room mystery -- that is, the reader is provided with two seemingly contradictory premises: based on historical data, only one extant copy of a volume can exist, and yet a second has been produced. This could have been a clever literary trick on Hodgson's part, but I don't think he's quite successful in pulling it off. I immediately thought that the first of the two axioms (that only one copy could exist) was a shaky one. Unless Welbeck was hanging out at the printer's shop 24/7 up until the time the type was distributed, etc. (which seems unlikely), I can't see how one could be unequivocally certain that a second copy couldn't have been produced on the sly. In addition, Carnacki's observations about the comparative process used in verifying the validity of the copy seem pretty wonky. But these are perhaps minor quibbles; what really damns this story for me is that it's simply not an interesting mystery. The stakes seems small and the subject matter (the existence or not of a rare book on acrostics) is a rather dull one. (hide spoiler)]

1.5* (of 5)

[Canavan]

Discussion of "The Haunted Jarvee"

(view spoiler)[In many ways this is typical Carnacki stuff -- we have the usual suspects gathered at No. 472, Cheyne Walk; a brief (perhaps briefer than usual) exposition concerning the supposed haunting; an account of Carnacki slowly and painstakingly searching the premises for clues (are these searches ever fruitful?); and followed finally by Carnacki and his cohorts experiencing the phenomenon.

One small point in this story's favor is the setting. I've always thought that Hodgson was at his best as a writer with his sea stories. Not that "Jarvee" is anywhere near as entertaining as, say, "The Voice in the Night" (1907). But there is something semi-compelling about the shadows as described by Hodgson (almost reminiscent of those dimly sensed entities described by Blackwood in his classic, "The Willows", 1907), but the author ends up dropping the ball. What is startling is not that we never understand the nature of these "things", but that Carnacki never even bothers to speculate about what they might represent. Frustratingly typical of Hodgson! The solution (if it can be called that) is also a bit odd. Hodgson goes on and on about the occult theory of vibrations and counter-vibrations, but it's not well explained and seemed to me somewhat contradictory given the unfolding events. Whether Carnacki's theory is or is not validated is also a bit unclear; his strategy certainly was not particularly effective with the barque winding up and the bottom of the sea. (hide spoiler)]

1.5* (of 5)

[Canavan]

Shawn wrote (in part):

Carnacki is an odd character to read. There's things I like about him - he's fallible (and thus not pompous) and he doesn't bloviate endlessly (or at least, not too often) on the author's pet theories of supernatural phenomena - in fact, Carnacki will, just as likely, refer to or institute some spell and not explain anything about it. He even occasionally has flashes of character (Hodgson has a nice stylistic touch of having Carnacki ask rhetorical questions of the narrator/reader to underline a point) but, in truth, he's generally flat and colorless - his assured knowledge (even though he may be wrong about particulars) unfortunately never allows the threats to become too personal. There's a bigger problem, though... [snip] Which is a shame, because in specific, the scenes and descriptions of the titanic, barreling, invisible equine are powerful and upsetting. Hodgson really captures the sense of a malignant, physical threat that can't be seen, and how genuinely frightening that would be. So, a mixed tale.

I agree with a lot of what you've written, Shawn. What I find frustrating is that in the best of these stories, Hodgson's powers of description result in passages that are often genuinely creepy and effective (as in, for example, "The Horse of the Invisible" or "The Whistling Room"), especially in a story's early phases. And yet Hodgson can never seem to quite "close the deal". Part of this is due to (as you allude) constraints inherent in the occult detective subgenre. But I think Hodgson has to shoulder a fair amount of the blame himself. Jeremy Lassen, in his introduction to Volume 2 of Night Shade Books' Collected Fiction of WHH, talks about the author's "narrative duality"; specifically, with respect to the Carnacki stories, he addresses Hodgson's desire to meld "the seemingly supernatural story with a natural explanation". I'm not stating that such an approach is invalid or will necessarily result in an inferior story, but I am saying that for a number of reasons I don't think Hodgson ever really artfully pulls off this trick. Most of the Carnacki stories at their conclusion resound with a rather heavy thud.

[Shawn]

Yes - part of it just seems to arise out of the need to actually have occasional stories where the threat isn't supernatural, so as to justify the structure and the times when it IS supernatural. But then, there's the problems of series characters as well - they can't die, as they have to keep coming back for the series, and so the threats are always a bit *qualified* as to how much damage they can do to the main character. I don't think Jule De Grandin suffered much more than a broken arm in his stories, ditto Silver John.

[Canavan]

Discussion of "The Hog".

I hope I'll be forgiven for jumping the gun in writing about this story, Ken, since it's not due to be read until next week, but I happened to have had the opportunity this afternoon to look at it and my time next week may be limited, so... Feel free, as always, to ignore! ;)

(view spoiler)["The Hog" enjoys the reputation of being one of the better of the Carnacki stories and I personally found that to be true. I don't think it's as well structured as "The Whistling Room", but parts of it are pretty darned creepy and for that reason alone I give it a grudging thumbs up. The story is at its best with Hodgson's descriptions of Bains' dream and of Carnacki's initial encounter with vile squealing and grunting of the innumerable "spectral" swine. (Hodgson's descriptions both of the lesser swine and of the Hog make me wonder whether he had read and been influenced by Edward Lucas White's 1906 story, "The House of the Nightmare".) I also appreciated the fact that -- unlike some previous Carnacki stories -- there was no attempt to explain away the phenomena with rational explanations. (No smugglers in this tale!)

I did find a few issues with "The Hog" that (for me at any rate) marred its power. Carnacki does not use his electric pentacle in this episode (although it's referenced a number of times); instead he opts to use a newer device that involves concentric colored rings. Although I think Hodgson's explanations about the ring's properties are more clear than in analagous expositions gracing previous Carnacki adventures, my fundamental problem with such anti-ghost devices remains the same -- they just strike me as a bit silly (especially at the point in the narrative when the sleuth protects himself and Bains by actually lifting and moving one of the colored circles.) And, in the final analysis, we have yet another situation where all of Carnacki's metaphysical devices are for naught -- as in "The Haunted Jarvee", Carnacki's best laid plans ultimately prove ineffective and he and Bains are only saved by an almost literal deus ex machina.

In addition, the text is just too darned long -- unnecessarily so. The potency of the section describing the actual struggle with the Hog (which, as I noted, is the best part) is weakened by it length and -- to be more specific -- its repetitive nature. Sometimes less is more and I think this is one of those instances. Similarly, after the story's climax we are treated to a Q&A in which Carnacki engages in a bit of gasbaggery, rambling on at length about the superposition of psychic and physical sensory modalities and then providing an entirely dispensable lecture on the nature of the Outer Circle. Both of these monologues, coming as they do after the climax, have the effect of leaching away the story's vigor. (hide spoiler)]

3* (of 5)

Postscript: This story first saw book publication in the 1947 Mycroft & Moran edition of Carnacki, the Ghost-Finder. I've posted a link to an illustration for the story that I'm pretty sure comes from this edition. The illustration is by Lee Brown Coye (who I like quite a lot, but whose work can admittedly be a bit of an acquired taste).

http://occultdetectives.tumblr.com/po...

[Ken B]

Canavan wrote: "Discussion of "The Hog".

I hope I'll be forgiven for jumping the gun in writing about this story, Ken, since it's not due to be read until next week, but I happened to have had the opportunity thi..."

I think I am going to have to read this one early too. I am leaving this weekend for a conference near Seattle. I'm not sure I will be sober enough to read anything next week.

[Ken B]

*******************"The Hog"******************

I think that I am suffering for Carnacki fatigue. I was not really into this story to begin with and actually found myself quite annoyed by it.

(view spoiler)[As Canavan says above, Carnacki's apparatus takes on a new level of ridiculous in this story and the story, the bulk of which occurs within the apparatus and under attack by forces from the Outer Circle, grows really, really long and tiresome. The description is strong but just seems unending. (hide spoiler)]

[Canavan]

I just wanted to reiterate that, although many of my comments over the course of this buddy read on the different Carnacki stories have been negative or, at best, luke warm, I've enjoyed this opportunity to go through the Carnacki canon and reassess them. I had read some of them before, but only in piecemeal fashion in various multi-author anthologies and this buddy read (a) allowed me to form a clearer picture of their place in the occult detective subgenre and (b) gave me a better understanding of Hodgson's strengths and weaknesses as a writer of the paranormal. So thanks once again, Ken.

[Ken B]

I'm with you on this! I am glad to have finally read the stories. Even thought they weren't as good as I hoped they would be, they were something I NEEDED to read.