Jean Ray and his specters of fear

[nomadman]

Raymundus Joannes de Kremer (1887 - 1964), better known by his pseudonym, Jean Ray, was a Belgian journalist and writer of a body of weird tales whose macabre tones and disturbing atmospheres earned him great acclaim during his lifetime, to the point of leading some to dub him "The Belgian Poe". A man of many faces, his early history is largely unknown but is rumored to have included piracy, bootlegging and gunrunning, among other things. Whether any of these stories is true is a matter for debate (one which Ray delighted in keeping alive). What is not in doubt however was that in 1926 Ray was convicted of embezzlement of the company in which he worked and sentenced to prison for the next six years. During this time he wrote what many consider his two best short works, The Shadowy Street and The Mainz Psalter. Following his release from prison he produced a steady stream of weird works (four of which were published in Weird Tales) as well as a series of detective novels involving a recurring character known as Harry Dickson, 'The American Sherlock Holmes' that fleetingly got the attentions of director Alain Resnais. In 1943 he wrote perhaps his crowning masterpiece, the novel Malpertuis, a work which has since become a classic of the horror field. He died in 1964.

Despite Ray's popularity and respect in the French speaking world, his work is still notoriously hard to get hold of in the English speaking one. Malpertuis was recently re-released under the Atlas Anti-Classics range, but a large quantity of his shorter works still languish in oblivion or in overly-priced OOP collections. The Shadowy Street can currently be found in three collections: Ghouls in my Grave (Berkley, 1965), My Private Spectres (Midnight House, 1999) and the excellent anthology Shadows of Fear (Tor, 1992). Of the three, Shadows... is the most easily obtainable, the first two being almost impossible to find at any reasonable price. Ex Occidente Press also released a limited edition hardcover of some of Ray's less well known stories, but even that will set you back a fair price (my copy cost around £50). Given how rare his work is, however, this is about as good as you're going to get it.

As for Ray's work itself, the best comparison I've come across is Robert Hadji's who compares him to a cross between Lovecraft and Seabury Quinn. I'd also add a touch of Robert Bloch in there too, given the rather macabre turn of mind both men seemed to have, as well as faint strains of William Hope Hodgson's weirder works. Because of his prolific output, a lot of Ray's work falls squarely within the pulp bracket (in the perjorative sense of the term) but at his best, his work achieves notable heights of fear. The Shadowy Street is an extremely odd and disturbing tale of the intrusion of a mysterious street in the neighborhood of a German city and the horrific murders and disappearances that result from it.

Written from the perspectives of two observers (set down as "The German Manuscript" and "The French Manuscript" respectively) the tale chronicles the experiences of these two observers as they struggle to come to terms with the breakdown of reality and logic that the street represents. The first half, The German Manuscript, is a frenzied nightmarish account of a house under siege from unseen forces that abduct or mutilate its occupants and the desperate lengths which its surviving occupants take to survive. Very little is described or explained in this section, and (rather realistically I thought) the characters take no time to mull on the reasons for the attacks, consumed as they are in the grim act of survival.

The second, and longer, half of the story, The French Manuscript, is written at a more sedate pace and details a man's observation and subsequent exploration of a mysterious street, St Beregonne's Lane, which has suddenly appeared and which only he himself appears to be able to see. Here at last the possible explanation of the street and its occupants begins to become clear. Still there is the feeling of walking in a fog, and the explanations, such that they are, only seem to deepen the mystery and horror which lie at the heart of the whole tale. Again there is the feeling of a nightmare, but a creeping nightmare in which concepts rather than physical dangers are the thing.

Taken together both parts of the tale work beautifully to present a truly chilling scenario. Then there are Ray's wonderful turns of phrase:

"I knocked on the first of the doors. Only the futile life of an echo was stirred behind it."

"The staircase ended at the edge of an abyss dug out of the night, from which vague monstrosoties were rising."

"An immensely tall old woman came in. I saw only her terrible green eyes glowing in her unimaginable face."

Without straining I'd say that The Shadowy Street was a tale to rank along the best of the genre and one of the most pleasurably disturbing works I've come across in recent years. I'm currently working my way through Ray's other short stories which I hope to post brief comments on in the near future, after which I'll begin Malpertuis.

[Fried Egg]

Sounds very interesting...thanks for the info.

[nomadman]

Well, I happened to read another Ray story last night, The Mainz Psalter. This is a more straightforward narrative than The Shadowy Street, though by no means any less strange or distrubing. An English sea captain, chatting with a retired schoolmaster in a naval bar, is given a proposition: to take charge of the schoolmaster's ship, The Mainz Psalter, and sail it to an undisclosed location somewhere off the coast of Greenland for reasons which, he is told, will be made clear in time. What follows is one of the oddest and most sinister sea voyages I've ever read. Without giving too much of the story away, the crew of the Mainz Psalter soon find that the schoolmaster is not quite what he seems and that the journey they are taking is not to any place on this earth...

I said before that Ray has an unerring knack for establishing a genuine nightmare feeling in the reader. This is on full display again here, and the gradually building sense of dislocation and strangeness, coupled with snatches of unexpected violence, work to create what I can only describe as a waking nightmare. Much like the best of William Hope Hodgson's work, Ray knows how to strike a balance between atmospheric horror and physical danger, playing both off each other to keep the reader on their toes. In fact the story reminded me quite strongly of a Hodgson nautical yarn, but a more surreal and disorienting one.

Ray is not without his humor, however. The banter between the rather odd members of the ship's crew is lively, amusing and natural, serving to throw into starker contrast the utterly weird series of events they find themselves thrown into. This human touch also stops the tale from descending into an otherwise baffling series of odd events. Still, like The Shadowy Street before it, very little is explained and the tale ends on an inconclusive note. Whether Jean Ray actually wanted us to understand the tale is never entirely clear, though the last line of the piece makes me suspect not.

Not that this matters of course. As a specimen of pure weirdness and disorienting horror, The Mainz Psalter is a supreme example and one more in a long line of very fine pieces from this excellent Belgian writer.

The Mainz Psalter can be found in the Penguin Book of Witches and Warlocks (ed. Marvin Kaye) and in the collections Ghouls in my Grave and My Private Spectres.

[nomadman]

Thoughts on a few more stories:

The Graveyard Guardian tells the story of a man who, down on his luck, accepts the job of a "Graveyard Guardian", a position which involves him staying for a year within the confines of an all-nigh abandoned graveyard. His task is to guard the tomb of a Duchess Opoltchenska, the last person to be buried there, a task which he shares with two other men. However, he is never to venture near the tomb nor to leave the graveyard at any time for the duration of his stay... This is a pretty eerie little story, told through a series of diary entries, and though the ending can be figured out well in advance it's effectively shuddersome for all that.

In the Fenn Marshes is a very short piece vaguely reminiscent of Blackwood's The Willows. Not much to say on the plot, though it shows that Ray is capable of conjuring an atmosphere of supernatural menace in a modicum of pages.

The Horrifying Presence begins with a group of drinkers in an inn on a stormy night, something of a cliche which Ray acknowledges through one of his characters during their conversation which, appropriately enough, involves horror fiction and the atmosphere necessary to its successful treatment. As they are talking a man suddenly bursts in and tells them in terrified tones that he is "running from something in the storm". He then proceeds to tell them his story. He is a gold prospector who lives alone in a small cabin on the gray marshy borderlands between Denmark and Germany. One evening he hears footsteps approaching his cabin from somewhere outside, yet when he looks out his window there is no one there. Each evening the footsteps get closer until one night they stop outside his cabin and the anonymous stranger knocks five times at his door... Once more the plot for this one isn't expecially original, but the bleakness of the man's tale, coupled with the odd humorous interjections from his listeners conjure up a potent atmosphere of dread which is never in danger of becoming overblown. Nonetheless it does contain one scene which I found particularly memorable. Upon hearing those five knocks, the man tells of how the very wood of the door itself seemed to scream out in ultimate fear, joined by a chorus of silent screams from the boards, the beams, from every element of his little cabin. I don't know why, but the idea of inanimate or unsentient matter being given temporary life solely to experience suffering, anguish and pain has always been a very terrible one to me, perhaps because it so closely mirrors our lives... Anyway, all morbidness aside, this is a very fine piece with a rather chilling final scene involving a recurrence of those five knocks on the top of the stranger's depilated and curiously veined scalp...

More to follow.

[Lobolover]

I wanted to read more of his stories , but I only could get my hands on Malpertuis . A wonderfull novel , however .

Oh and ....you wouldn't happen to have "The Pink Terror" anywhere in your colection now would you ?

[nomadman]

Originally Posted by Lobolover

I wanted to read more of his stories , but I only could get my hands on Malpertuis . A wonderfull novel , however .

Oh and ....you wouldn't happen to have "The Pink Terror" anywhere in your colection now would you ?

Nope, afraid not. That particular story is in My Private Spectres, a book I dont yet have. My Ray collection currently consists of Malpertuis (Atlas Anti-Classics), The Horrifying Presence (Ex Occidente) and the anthologies Shadows of Fear (Tor) and The Penguin Book of Witches and Warlocks (Penguin) from which the stories The Shadowy Street and The Mainz Psalter were respectively drawn.

[Lobolover]

Oh okay . Just that is the one I am most interested in .

Though where are you even gonna find that book ? Not even L.W.Currey has it , though you'd probably have to reconcile with hoping away with one arm and one leg if you'd want to buy it from them .

I am personaly interested in Ray , though can't seem to find any sort of place to get to his stories . I at least have some hope for Wakefield as Wordsworth promised to publish that and two or so other in copyright titles last year I think , though it looks as if it won't come out till 2011 at least .

Do you know Wakefield though ? Because if not you realy should . His first colection , "They Return at Evening" can be easily on par with Ray . And then there's.....W.C.Morrow . The nastiest , most cruel and sadistic bastard I have ever read . If you like tales of human missery you can find his "The Ape , the Idiot and Other people" online for free . While the title story is so-so the whole thing is filled with delicious torment and agony . Beats the tar out of that one D'Isle Adam story everyone's on about (and even his "Desire to be a man") , and Maurice Level .

[nomadman]

Originally Posted by Lobolover

Oh okay . Just that is the one I am most interested in .

Though where are you even gonna find that book ? Not even L.W.Currey has it , though you'd probably have to reconcile with hoping away with one arm and one leg if you'd want to buy it from them .

I am personaly interested in Ray , though can't seem to find any sort of place to get to his stories . I at least have some hope for Wakefield as Wordsworth promised to publish that and two or so other in copyright titles last year I think , though it looks as if it won't come out till 2011 at least.

I was very lucky to pick up a copy of The Horrifying Presence off ebay for about £50 which is probably the most easily available collection of his at the moment, Spectres... and Ghouls... being nearly impossible to get hold of. Depending on how desperate you are to get hold of his work you might like to look in some of the anthologies for single pieces: Shadows of Fear and Don't Open This Book! both contain his fantastic weird novella The Shadowy Street, whilst The Penguin Book of Witches and Warlocks contains his classic of nautical horror The Mainz Psalter. The Graveyard Guardian (here printed as The Guardian of the Cemetery) can be found in the luridly covered Rivals of Dracula. I believe The Last Traveller can be found somewhere as well, though it slips my mind at the moment.

Originally Posted by Lobolover

Do you know Wakefield though ? Because if not you realy should . His first colection , "They Return at Evening" can be easily on par with Ray . And then there's.....W.C.Morrow . The nastiest , most cruel and sadistic bastard I have ever read . If you like tales of human missery you can find his "The Ape , the Idiot and Other people" online for free . While the title story is so-so the whole thing is filled with delicious torment and agony . Beats the tar out of that one D'Isle Adam story everyone's on about (and even his "Desire to be a man") , and Maurice Level .

Yep, know both authors but have, alas, yet to read them.

[AE35Unit]

Sounds verey interesting, shame he's not listed on Project Gutenberg or Manybnooks-I'd like to try some of his works. I take it his pseudonym, Jean Ray is pronounced Zhahn rather than Gene, which when you say it quickly sounds like Genre!

[Lobolover]

His works aren't in the public domain in the US and that's talking about the french versions .

The english ones have another ten or so years added to that seventy year deadline . Basicly you'd have to wait till around 2035-2045 to read them on PG .

Also I found out that less then three months ago "My Own private spectres" was sold on ebay for 257 dollars .

Damn .

edit : oh Morrow you can find online no problem .

[AE35Unit]

Originally Posted by Lobolover

His works aren't in the public domain in the US and that's talking about the french versions .

The english ones have another ten or so years added to that seventy year deadline . Basicly you'd have to wait till around 2035-2045 to read them on PG .

Also I found out that less then three months ago "My Own private spectres" was sold on ebay for 257 dollars .

Damn .

edit : oh Morrow you can find online no problem .

Why so long? Going by the 50 years after death law in the UK I make that 2014!

[Lobolover]

The translations , unless you can read french .

And I think you need to look on PG Canada .

[nomadman]

The Formidable Secret of the Pole is one of the weirder tales I've come across so far. A professor and a party of university students on a field trip to Land's End come across a sealed cylinder containing a strange message written in an unknown language. Back at the University the professor in charge of the party attempts to decipher the message. He finds that it appears to be a message "to the people on the surface of the world" inviting them to come and join the anonymous scribe in his underwater abode where "great knowledge and ancient sciences will be made known to you". Included in the message are directions to a small inland lake on an isolated island off the coast of the Orkneys, which is the supposed entrance to this Atlantean underworld. Together with one of the students (who furnishes the scuba diving equipment and supplies for the expedition) the Professor travels to the Orkneys in order to unearth the secret of the strange letter... Quite an intriguing presmise this, though the odd turn the tale takes once the two protagonists succeed in reaching their destination frustrated me, given that there is little or no explanation for anything that goes on. Unlike The Mainz Psalter or The Shadowy Street, the sheer strangeness of this particular tale was baffling more than anything else, and I can't in all honesty say this is one of Ray best efforts.

The Choucroute reminded me a little of something by Stefan Grabinski. A man, given a season ticket for unlimited train journeys, decides to take a train to nowhere and see where it leads. Where it leads him is to an odd ghost town where nothing seems to be anything more than a facade or a dead end. Through this eerie place, the narrator humorously attempts to find a choucroute, a German/French delicacy lovingly described by Ray near the start of the tale, and which the narrator is particularly partial to. He finds one, but it isn't all it's cracked up to be... This is another rather baffling tale, probably inspired by a dream, that didn't entirely captivate me, though it does succeed in creating an unsettling, vaguely nightmarish atmosphere.

The Moustiers Plate returns us to the sea, a setting which seems to have been dear to Ray's heart. A dockside man gains possession of a valuable plate on which are drawn an ugly midget and a three-headed monster. During a drunken binge the man falls asleep only to wake up on board ship seemingly at the mercy of the figures from the plate! A number of other twists and turns occur involving a witch, a curse and a school of man-eating sharks. A bizarre little oddity.

The Black Mirror is one of the longest stories in the collection so far, and one of the better ones. A cynical and down-at-heel doctor skimming an almanac of old auctions learns about the sale of one black mirror, a mystical and valuable object that once belonged to John Dee, royal physician to Queen Elizabeth of England. Having tracked down its present location the doctor, who also happens to be a part-time burglar, decides to liberate the mirror for himself. A few days go by and he starts to notice various things have gone missing, including his favorite pipe. And there has begun an inexplicable smell of tobacco smoke wherever he goes. And then the people around him begin to die... A decent tale, this, similar to something by Bloch. Ray keeps the weirdness under wraps for most of the piece, though there is one rather unsettling scene involving a mystic who happens to catch sight of the invisible horror that lurks within the mirror and fleetingly describes it as having "feet like snakes" before running screaming into the night.

[nomadman]

I actually finished Malpertuis a while back, but simply haven't had time to write a proper review till now.

Like several other Ray stories, this one is composed of a number of interrelated pieces, each of which attempts to shed light on a central mystery. In the novel's case this is in the form of old documents found in a metal cylinder "liberated" from a monastery by a professional art thief. The thief, after having read the documents, feels compelled to set them down (including a few comments of his own, whenever he feels it pertinent to do so).

The opening, and chronologically oldest, document which he presents to us is a confusing account of a sea voyage to a strange island that ends in disaster and near-death. It sets a suitably offbeat tone that launches us straight into the longest part of the novel, a first person account of a young man's life in an extremely odd house called Malpertuis which, we learn at the start, he is forced to live in alongside about twenty other family members (who all possess names like Dideloo, Euryale and Griboin), as the dying wish of their old Uncle Cassave as he lies on his deathbed. These family members, we quickly find, hate each other's guts and are only agreeing to stay because of the enormous pension each of them has been promised, along with the sizeable proceeds of his will. They bicker and squawk and call each other names as their dying uncle looks on with amusement, whilst outside in the echoing corridors a man's voice repeatedly wails, "oh no, it's putting out the lamps again!" Ray drops us into this whirling maelstrom of flowery names and eccentric personalities without much preparation, and I found the early parts of this section rather hardgoing. Following the death of the uncle, however, and the dispersion of the individual family members the tale settles down somewhat, and the following chapters content themselves with the experiences of the young narrator in his explorations of the house, which turns out to be perhaps the strangest character in the entire book...

I'll mention once again that Ray is extremely adept at springing nasty suprises on the reader. There are a number of these here, including some death sequences that elicited a genuine shudder from me by virtue of their shocking brutality and unexpectendess. Coupled with the mysterious and nightmarish atmosphere Ray maintains at all other times and I found myself constantly on edge, never knowing precisely what to expect next. These sections are, without hyperbole, absolutely brilliant stuff and the very epitome of what I consider weird fiction to be. Ray bombards us with strangeness without ever veering into the baffling or the incomprehensible, and the events of the story have the satisfying feel of being related without it ever being clear exactly how.

The second half of the book leaves the confines of Malpertuis and charts the life of the young man as he attempts to live a life away from the terrible old house. This section reads like a breath of fresh air after the stifling atmosphere of the first section, and acts as a sort of intermission for the reader. However, the horrors of his past soon begin to creep back into the young man's life again, and it becomes clear that his destiny is inextricably linked with that of the house and its now-monstrous inhabitants...

The final document relates events through the eyes of a monk of a monastery (incidentally, the very same monastery that the art thief obtained the cylindrical container from) where the young man of the previous document is recovering after having been attacked following his flight from Malpertuis. This section clears up a little the thick fog of mystery that has hiterto surrounded the book, as well as introducing us to a rather pivotal character in the form of the Abbot Doucedame, a man constantly referred to throughout the first half of the book, and revealing the identity of another, the enigmatic Eisengott. Yet, in typical Ray fashion, the mystery is never clearly solved, the clouds never entirely part, and the work ends on an inconclusive but very satisfying note.

If you're going to read anything by Ray then this is the place to start. And considering that it's about the only affordable work by him it's more or less the only place to start. Buy it. It'll kick your ass.

[GOLLUM]

I don't think I've ever heard of Jean Ray, so thank youfor bringing him to our attentionwith your excellent summaries!...

If I ever get the chance to source an affordable copy of his harder to obtain works I shall not hesitate to do so.