Spookdaddy
Cuckoo
- Joined
- May 24, 2006
- Messages
- 7,956
- Location
- Midwich
I really didn't find MR James at all scary...
To be honest - and I say this as a huge fan - neither do I; but then neither does any other literature, or for that matter, film. (And jump-scares don't count - they're just a massive cheat.)
The most important thing to me is not the thrill of a 'scare' - which seems to me to be a very ephemeral thing indeed - but the building of an atmosphere (as long as that atmosphere hangs to some sort of narrative framework; if not it's just steam out of a bottle). Many writers of ghost stories can plot, but not create a pervasive atmosphere. Some writers can do the opposite: build an effective air of oppressive dread - but one which is never lived up to by an ineffective narrative. (This latter seems to me to be a modern curse - endemic, I find, in an awful lot of modern TV and film making.)
Few, it seems to me, can do both - but I think James is one of them.
But does it keep me awake at night? No.
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