Halloween ... Already?

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I have been thinking much about the aesthetics of the Gothic as Halloween approaches.  As I coast into my 55^th year, I continue to be amazed at how adults have successfully co-opted the holiday.  When I was a boy, Halloween was primarily a children’s holiday, and when most adults thought about it (if they did at all), it was as a nuisance.

All of that has changed.  For 2017, the National Retail Foundation (NRF) predicts that 69.1 percent of Americans will celebrate the Halloween holiday this year.  To do so, they will spend $8.4 billion (billion!) – with 44.4 percent of them starting their Halloween observance in the first two weeks of October.

This figure has been steadily increasing; for 2007, for instance, Halloween spending was “only” $5.1 billion.  This year, we will spend more than $350 million on costumes … for our pets.

People of my generation remember that Halloween was quite a big deal to us as children, but we were mostly on our own.  Halloween costumes from the Ben Cooper company arrived in October, along with some plastic pumpkin satchels and some cardboard window decorations – and that was it.  Today, each and every retail store (from card shops to food stores) has some kind of Halloween selection.  The broad array of choice and quality in Halloween products is remarkable.  These include candelabrum, snow globes, coffin-shaped jewelry boxes, plaster gargoyles and gnomes, monster bookends, dining and bedroom sundries, let alone more perishable items, like black plastic curtains and crepe paper wall coverings.  If anyone were seriously interested in spooky décor, one could furnish their home during the Halloween season and be set for the year.

We here at The Jade Sphinx love Halloween, of course. But the co-opting of the holiday by adults seems to hit a discordant note. Much like the vulgarization of classic children’s properties like Peter Rabbit, the infantilized adults we have become continue to pollute things ideally left for children.

It seems as if we are hell-bent on ruining all the great rituals of childhood because … we, as a culture, seem incapable of growing up ourselves.

Master Humphrey’s Clock, by Charles Dickens

Even the greatest authors are sometimes taken by surprise at their own work.  Case in point is Master Humphrey’s Clock, by Charles Dickens (1812-1870).  I had been dipping into it the week prior to Halloween, and a tasty treat it is.

But it is not, however, anything like Dickens intended it to be.

Master Humphrey’s Clock tells of a lonely, elderly cripple (Master Humphrey), who lives in a spacious home complete with ornate longcase (grandfather) clock.  The clock case holds a wealth of papers – stories told by members of a private club, called Master Humphrey’s Clock.

Members of the club include Jack Redburn, a gentleman of a free-and-easy sort; an older, unnamed deaf gentleman; retired merchant Owen Miles; and Mr. Pickwick, so well remembered from the book The Pickwick Papers.  Downstairs, the servants have a mirror society, Mr. Weller’s Watch, run by Mr. Weller (Pickwick’s servant), the barber and Mr. Humphrey’s maid.

The book, then, is a frame story about Humphrey and his friends and servants, and the stories they tell.  Serendipitously for the time of year, English story-tellers when confronted with glowing hearths and bottles of port usually tell stories with a grim or macabre flavor.  Master Humphrey’s Clock contains one rather somber, medieval revenge tale, as well as a splendid “ghost story,” complete with a gibbet, masked aristocrats, midnight runs and mysterious witches.  It is almost impossible to put down.

This being Dickens, his natural inclination towards comedy cannot be suppressed, and Mr. Weller’s tale is one rich with low comedy and dialect shtick.  If your taste runs towards that sort of thing, then this is the sort of thing you’ll like.

Dickens’ greatest critic – author G.K. Chesterton (1874-1936) – thought Master Humphrey’s Clock to be mid-level Dickens at best.  But, Chesterton also argued that it was incredibly emblematic of the way the great man’s mind worked – the central ideas of home and warm hearth, the delight in story-telling, the larger-than-life characters who seem like old friends upon meeting them.  Also in evidence are Dickens' untrammeled flights of fancy, his pawkish humor, and his taste for the outlandish.  And GKC may be right … many writers with a particularly distinctive voice sometimes sound like imitations of themselves, and Master Humphrey is the greatest imitation of Dickens mimicked by the great man himself.

If this sounds as if I were not recommending Master Humphrey – do not be deceived.  It is a wonderful romp that can be enjoyed without hesitation.  Indeed, as autumn progresses and winter approaches, there are few better places to be than beside the hearth and longcase clock of Master Humphrey.

All of which would be a surprise, to some extent, to the author himself.  Master Humphrey’s Clock started not as a collection of short stories, but as a magazine written entirely by Dickens.  The premise of the publication was Humphrey and his friends gathering weekly to read stories stored in the clock.

Initially, the magazine was a success, but sales soon slumped.  Dickens then started telling the story that would become The Old Curiosity Shop, the serialization of which took over the entire magazine.  Sales soared to 100,000 weekly; he then started Barnaby Rudge in the same magazine, which also met with marked success.

Though not a great book in itself, Master Humphrey’s Clock made The Old Curiosity Shop and Barnaby Rudge possible; to this reader’s view, that makes it a very important book, indeed.  It is available for free download at the indispensable Manybooks.net, and comes highly recommended.

Halloween at The Jade Sphinx

Look … before your correspondent is branded as the Ebenezer Scrooge of the Halloween set, let me say that I really like Halloween.  Readers of this blog know my high respect for the tradition of Gothic literature, my taste for Gothic films, and my sometimes recherché taste in the arts.  So, I like Halloween quite a bit.

But, something has gone seriously off-kilter.  When I was a boy, my brothers and I went out trick-or-treating for several hours in home-made costumes (or some pretty spiffy store-bought ones made by Ben Cooper), went home and ate candy and then looked at whatever spooky movie the local television channels played until bedtime.  And, let me tell you, this was a great night.

Now, children are kept off the streets (have you seen an unattended child anywhere lately?) and adults get into sometimes quite gruesome or lewd costumes and party with abandon. 

Think I’m kidding?  According to the NRF’s Halloween Consumer Spending Survey conducted by Prosper Insights and Analytics, more costumes than ever will be bought in 2014.  Add to that, more than two-thirds (67.4%) of celebrants will buy Halloween costumes for the holiday, the most in the survey’s 11 year history.  And the price tag?  Wait for it …. Americans will spend $7.4 billion on Halloween this year.

I will not say that this money would be better spent on books (though it would), or clothing, or on-line courses or simple, edible food.  But, I have to say that this is madness.  We have taken a simple, fun holiday away from children and tarted it up for adult consumption.  Do we really need to see Halloween zombie masks complete with rotting jaw bone sliding from the skull?  Or adult women in bunny suits or corseted as seductive vamps?  And does Halloween have to mean a complete abandon of the governors of decent behavior and a celebration of the untrammeled ID? 

Again – I get it.  I like Halloween fine.  We are hosting a Halloween party ourselves, this year.  But somehow the more innocent pleasures of Halloween have given way to Mardi Gras excess.  Can't we find a way to integrate children into this holiday once again?  Because no matter how much I like Halloween now, I sure liked it more when I was 12.

And now, onto Thanksgiving….

The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein, By Peter Ackroyd

His was the most beautiful corpse I had ever seen.  It seemed that the flush had not left the cheeks, and that the mouth was curved in the semblance of a smile.  There was no expression of sadness or of horror upon the face but, rather, one of sublime resignation.  The body itself was muscular and firmly knit; the phthisis had removed any trace of superfluous fat, and the chest, abdomen and thighs were perfectly formed.  The legs were fine and muscular, the arms most elegantly proportioned.  The hair was full and thick, curling at the back and sides, and I noticed that there was a small scar above the left eyebrow.  That was the only defect I could find.

Well, there’s a dainty dish for Halloween day, served up by novelist Peter Ackroyd (born 1949).  Ackroyd is one of our most celebrated novelists and essayists.  His gathered criticism, The Collection: Journalism, Reviews, Essays, Short Stories, Lectures (2001), reflects a lively and opinionated intelligence; these little gems are among the finest things he’s written.

Ackroyd’s biographies are justly famous, and his monumental Dickens (1990) may be the last word on the subject.  Written in the manner of a Victorian novel, Dickens demonstrates the importance of form matched to content.  He has also produced excellent biographies of Turner (2005), Blake (1995) and Thomas More (1998).

Most of his novels are equally distinguished, especially to this reader The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde (1983) and our subject today, The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein (2008).  Readers expecting the usual hugger-mugger of less accomplished supernatural novelists, turn elsewhere.  But … if you are interested in a novel of ideas that is equal parts chiller and historical novel, then this book is for you.

The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein is a wonderful mix of fact and fancy.  Ackroyd’s conceit is that Victor Frankenstein himself was a friend of Percy and Mary Shelley, and was there for that storm-driven evening in Switzerland when the Shelleys, Lord Byron and Dr. John Polidori sat around, telling ghost stories.  That evening led Mary, then 18 years old, to later write the novel Frankenstein (1818).

The novel includes a great deal of actual historical incident (Shelley sent down from school, the drowning death of his first wife, Byron’s friendship with Polidori), while skillfully inserting into it the story of Frankenstein and his monster.  But, more than anything, what Ackroyd is playing with is the Romantic novel of ideas, and the notion that Olympian notions of transcendence and heightened sensibility can be very dangerous things.  Frankenstein – himself neither poet nor artist and, perhaps, an indifferent scientist – dreams of lofty achievement and elevated sensations.  Does that drive him to commit horrible acts … or, worse yet, to create life in a mad ambition to usurp the powers of God, and then refuse responsibility for the life he has created?

More importantly, does Frankenstein’s Monster truly exist, or is it an extension of his own fears, evil ambitions, or, perhaps, a suppressed homosexual desire for Percy Shelley?

Like Dracula, the “meaning” of the Frankenstein Monster has altered with each decade since first created by Mary Shelley – the book can be interpreted as everything from a female-free reproductive paradigm to a socialist tract.  If succeeding generations have grappled with the overarching meaning of the Monster, why should Victor Frankenstein himself be exempt?

Ackroy’ds Monster – like that of Mary Shelley – is no mute, shambling zombie, but, rather, an articulate and vengeful revenant.  He did not ask to be brought into this world and, cannot understand human cruelty and apathy.  Eventually, like Milton’s Satan, he believes that it is perhaps better to do evil than to do nothing at all.  That, perhaps more than anything else, is the true meaning of Halloween.

Here’s another snippet, where the Monster confronts Frankenstein after murdering Shelley’s first wife, Harriet:

“I wished you to notice me.”

“What?”

“I wished you to think of me.  To consider my plight.”

“By killing Harriet?”

“I knew then that you would not be able to throw me off.  To disdain me.”

“Have you no conscience?”

“I have heard the word.”  He smiled, or what I took to be a smile passed across his face.  “I have heard many words for which I do not feel the sentiment here.”  He tapped his breast.  “But you understand that, do you not, sir?”

“I cannot understand anything so devoid of principle, so utterly malicious.”

“Oh, surely you have some inkling?  I am hardly unknown to you.”  I realized then that that his was the voice of youth – of the youth he had once been – and that a cause of horror lay in the disparity between the mellifluous expression and the distorted appearance of the creature.  “You have not lost your memory, I trust?”

“I wish to God I had.”

“God?  That is another word I have heard. Are you my God?”

I must have given an expression of disdain, or disgust, because he gave out a howl of anguish in a manner very different from the way he had conversed.  With one sudden movement he picked up the great oaken table, lying damaged upon the floor, and set it upright.  “You will remember this.  This was my cradle, was it not?  Here was I rocked.  Or will you pretend that the river gave me birth?”  He took a step towards me.  “You were the first thing that I saw upon this earth.  Is it any wonder that your form is more real to me than that of any other living creature?”

I turned away, in disgust at myself for having created this being.  But he misunderstood my movement.  He sprang in front of me, with a celerity unparalleled.  “You cannot leave me.  You cannot shut out my words, however distasteful they may be to you.  Were you covered by oceans, or buried in mountains, you would still hear me.”

We hear him still, nearly 200 years after his conception.  Frankenstein’s Monster is that which in each of us is both abject and terrible.

The Pearl and the Pumpkin – A Forgotten Halloween Classic

Your correspondent remembers a time when Halloween was a holiday primarily celebrated by children.  As I dimly recall that era, we kids purchased some great, inexpensive costumes, or, better yet, made our own.  We would trick-or-treat after school and then, if we were especially lucky, television would make the day perfect with a vintage monster movie, preferably something starring Bela Lugosi (1882-1956) or Boris Karloff (1887-1969).

Things have changed quite a bit.

Today, one would be hard pressed to find children celebrating the holiday at all.  Misguided, unimaginative parents fear something “unwholesome” about Halloween, and church leaders and other professional blue noses prate piffle about “satanic influences.”  As if wearing a Capt. America costume before eating a pound of licorice was the fast road to perdition...

But worse than disenfranchising children from the holiday, adults have coopted it as their own, making what was once a childish frolic of skeletons and ghost stories into a sort of demented Mardi Gras.  As if the Baby Boomer generation was not sufficiently infantilized, it continues to make matters worse by taking the very stuff of childhood and perverting it into an extended flight from adulthood.  If your children are home while you are in a Halloween party … then something is seriously wrong.

Not that adulthood means leaving behind the fun of Halloween completely.  Many of the great classics of English literature are ghost stories (Hamlet, anyone?), and the shudder tales of M. R. James and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle remain champion reading.  And if, like your correspondent, you have an interest in the children’s literature of the past century, you could do much worse than finding a copy of The Pearl and the Pumpkin by Paul West and W. W. Denslow.

Denslow (1856-1915) is, of course, remembered primarily as the first illustrator of L. Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, in 1900.  Denslow was considered to be one of the major contributors to the success of the book, as his illustrations were applauded by critics and children alike.  Baum and Denslow would work on several other books, including Father Goose: His Book, and Dot and Trot of Merryland; jointly holding the copyrights of their collaborations.

However, things went sour when the Wizard of Oz was adapted for the stage.  Baum wrote the show and Denslow designed the sets and costumes – but the two would quarrel when Denslow insisted on 50 percent ownership of the show.  It would be the last time the two worked together – though Denslow earned so much from the book and the show that he was able to buy an island off of Bermuda and crown himself King Denslow I.

Baum would, of course, go on to write 13 more Oz books, and dozens of other classic children’s tales.  Illustrating the Oz stories fell to John R. Neill (1877-1943) who, to this viewer’s eye, surpassed Denslow’s conception to become the finest illustrator of the Oz corpus.

Immediately following the windfall of the Oz book and stage play, Denslow sought to duplicate its success.  He worked with writer Paul West to create The Pearl and the Pumpkin in 1904.  (It would go on to become a successful show in 1905, running in Boston and New York before touring the country.)

For sheer audacious invention, it would be hard to beat The Pearl and the Pumpkin.  The story begins on a farm in Vermont, where Joe Miller has perfected a method for growing perfect pumpkins.  He and his cousin, Pearl, are all set to celebrate Halloween when they are visited by the Ancient Mariner (complete with albatross and crossbow), who contrives to learn the secret of perfect pumpkins because the pirates down in Davy Jones’ Locker (including Long John Silver, Balckbeard, and Capt. Kidd) are hungry for pumpkin pie.

Before too long, Joe is turned into a giant pumpkin boy by a sprite called the Corn Dodger, and they (along with a baker and professional canner) all end up under the sea, battling pirates and contriving to get Joe back to normal. 

The book was clearly designed with a stage extravaganza in mind (the Glinda-like figure, Mother Carey, even has a bevy of chorus girls behind her), but the joyous energy, high spirits and bright good humor make the book a unique experience.  Denslow created illustrations for every page – including some spreads that straddled both open pages.  Fortunately, the book was available in a facsimile of its 1904 edition from Dover Books, and can be found in places like New York’s Books of Wonder.

I could think of no better way to celebrate Halloween.

Happy Halloween: The Vision of Faust by Luis Falero

For Halloween I’m sharing a dainty dish called The Vision of Faust, by Luis Ricardo Falero (1851-1896).

Falero is a little-remembered painter with a marked taste for the outrageous and the bizarre.  He often painted witches, wizards and occult sequences from literary classics, and though his oeuvre was recherché, he was quite a gifted painter in his own right. 

Falero was born in Toldeo and entered the Spanish navy at an early age.  However, his artistic inclinations were stronger than his military ties, and he left the navy for a career in art.  He studied in Paris and London, where he later settled.  Falero had a deep and abiding love for astronomy, and the heavens around us were often integrated into his paintings.

Falero died early, only 45, though somewhat worn out by strife and ruin.  At the time of his death he lost a paternity suite brought against him by 17 year-old Maud Harvey, who was seduced by Falero while serving as both his housemaid and model.  He dismissed Harvey from service when she became pregnant with his child, and broke his promise to support her and the baby.  She won a judgment against him of five shillings a week.

Ironically, Johann Goethe’s Faust concerns a middle-aged scholar (the somewhat flabby man in the painting) who sells his soul to the devil, Mephistopheles, in return for regained youth and sensual pleasures. He seduces a young girl, Gretchen, who bears his illegitimate child, kills the baby and is sentenced to death, but her soul is spared from Mephisto's clutches.

Goethe's Faust is an extraordinarily influential work, influencing operas, plays, films and … this picture.  Aside from grand, cosmological themes, Falero was obsessed with the female nude, of which he was a master.  His command of feminine anatomy was immense, and his skills at coloration and tone formidable.  He rendered the female form with great charm and occasional wit. 

In fact, the erotic urges of some artists are, if you’ll pardon the expression, naked on the canvas.  It takes only a glance at Michelangelo’s body of work, for instance, to see his intense passion for muscular youths (the same can be said for American artist Paul Cadmus), and the overt passion by which Edgar Degas and Édouard Manet painted their female subjects made their passion for women visible.  Falero’s erotic impulse is blatantly visible in his finished work.  Note the rounded sensuality of the women in The Vision of Faust, and the creamy pinkish-white coloration.  The women fly though the air visibly contorted by passion or erotic release – it is an extremely sexual representation.  Indeed, even the hag/witch in the lower portion of the picture seems fired by a raw, sexual energy: one of her hands rests wantonly on the hip of a sensual woman, while the other fondles a ram’s horn. 

Faust, too, though pudgy and obviously middle-aged, is sexually objectified by his warm coloration, and, more importantly, by the echoes of his figure to the ram behind him.  A trick of the light playing on Faust’s hair gives the impression of horns, and his beard all too obviously mimics the ram’s profile.

Perhaps one of the key reasons this picture is so effective is its brazen, shameless sense of … blasphemy.  The thick, cottony clouds highlighted and lit from behind are strongly reminiscent of hundreds of religious paintings, and the huge, menacing bat in the upper left seems to be an inverse image of the dove. Where religious pictures often have the transcendent resurrection of the dead, Faust features a reanimated corpse, its skull face leering hideously.

The Vision of Faust is a remarkable painting … I just wouldn’t want it hanging on my wall.

Happy Halloween!