Tag Archives: Ghost Stories

BOOKS: “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio” by Pu Songling [Trans. by John Minford]

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Strange Tales from a Chinese StudioStrange Tales from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher Site – Penguin

This is a collection of short stories, almost entirely speculative fiction, dating from the Qing Dynasty (specifically, the late 1600’s to early 17oo’s.) Ghosts, folkloric creatures, and Taoist magic all feature prominently in the stories. The stories average about five pages, but with a wide deviation from stories scarcely longer than today’s micro-fiction to extensive pieces. The Penguin edition collects 104 out of a much larger collection of stories.

The best of these stories are clever and highly engaging, and there are many such tales. Being from Qing Dynasty China, the stories offer a perspective different from one’s typical horror and fantasy short stories. Many of the stories prominently feature eroticism, but not graphically so.

As for the weakness of the volume, even though it selects only a portion of Pu Songling’s original, there are many stories that blend together, failing to distinguish themselves. This is most notable among the fox-spirit stories, of which there are just so many. [A number of them are fantastically unique, but others are just variations on the same.] So, the book can seem a bit repetitive in that sense. However, before you get to the point where you feel you can’t read one more fox-spirit story, you’re quite likely to read a tale that blows your mind.

I greatly enjoyed many of the stories herein. Perhaps, the volume could have benefited from further abridgement, but it’s well worth the read.

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BOOKS: “The Penguin Book of Indian Ghost Stories” ed. by Ruskin Bond

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Penguin Book of Indian Ghost StoriesPenguin Book of Indian Ghost Stories by Ruskin Bond
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Publisher’s Website

This is an anthology of stories of the supernatural set in India or built around characters and contexts of India. About half of the stories are by writers of non-Indian ancestry, though some were born or lived extensively in India (e.g. Rudyard Kipling and C.A. Kincaid.) Not all of the pieces are “ghost stories” in a technical sense, but they all revolve around the supernatural or surreal experience.

I enjoyed all the stories in this collection, but among my favorites were: “The Brown Hand” by Arthur Conan Doyle; “The Strange Ride of the Morrowbie Jukes” by Rudyard Kipling; “The Fire-Jogi” by A.C. Renny; “Fritz” by Satyajit Ray; “Anath Babu’s Terror” by Satyajit Ray; “The Yellow-Legged Man” by Sudhir Thapliyal, and “Topaz” by Ruskin Bond.

If you enjoy scary stories, I’d highly recommend this book.

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“The Call” by Charlotte Mew [w/ Audio]

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From our low seat beside the fire
 Where we have dozed and dreamed and watched the glow
 Or raked the ashes, stopping so
 We scarcely saw the sun or rain
 Above, or looked much higher
 Than this same quiet red or burned-out fire.
To-night we heard a call,
 A rattle on the window-pane,
 A voice on the sharp air,
 And felt a breath stirring our hair,
 A flame within us: Something swift and tall
 Swept in and out and that was all.
Was it a bright or dark angel? Who can know?
It left no mark upon the snow,
 But suddenly it snapped the chain
 Unbarred, flung wide the door
 Which will not shut again;
 And so we cannot sit here anymore.
We must arise and go:
 The world is cold without
 And dark and hedged about
 With mystery and enmity and doubt,
 But we must go
 Though yet we do not know
 Who called, or what marks we shall leave upon the snow.