Tag: Horror

In this, our second Attempted Conversation about Robert Aickman, we have brought in a formidable duo as guests to grapple with two Robert Aickman stories: “Ringing the Changes,” and “No Stronger Than a Flower.” Hilary and Indigo of the Full Blossom of the Evening Podcast, who are newcomers to the Capital-S Strange world of Robert Aickman, bring their talents of intertextual analysis to bear on two very different (yet tantalizingly resonant) stories of marital tension.

Like your “Humble Hosts,” Hilary and Indigo fell quickly in love with Aickman’s world of “The Strange,” because, as fans of David Lynch, it was easy to do so: while both artists could hardly be further apart aesthetically, they are both committed to the power of mystery, and the understanding that the line that divides the concrete world and the world of the unconscious, is both porous and slippery.

While we believe that Aickman’s stories are uncommonly resistant to the detrimental effects of spoilers, you can find one of them for free online at this link:

Ringing the Changes by Robert Aickman Free Online

And the other can be found cheaply in the Faber & Faber collection The Unsettled Dust. If, like us, you love Aickman’s work enough to spring for something fancy, Tartarus Press has the complete short fiction of Robert Aickman in beautifully crafted hardcover editions of Aickman’s collections under their original titles. Here is a link to one of his best titles, Sub Rosa. Links to the other titles are also on this page:

Robert Aickman on Tartarus Press

A big thanks to all of you who have stuck with us over the years. Here’s to many more!

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Greetings listeners!

We are pleased to bring you the first episode in a series about one of our favorite writers, Robert Aickman. As longtime listeners of Counter Esperanto know, we are something of a hybrid podcast: we began as a Twin Peaks podcast which filtered that series, and other David Lynch projects through weird stories, folklore, and history. In that process, we have often featured authors such as Thomas Ligotti, Franz Kafka, and of course H.P. Lovecraft.

It is Robert Aickman, though, that we feel deserves special attention. As we will discuss in this inaugural episode, those who have loved the mystery of Lynch’s films, especially the late films, and especially Twin Peaks: The Return, will find much that resonates with Robert Aickman’s brand of “the strange.”

To get a sense of what this author is all about, read one of his most anthologized stories, “The Hospice,” right here.

Robert Fordyce Aickman, born June 27, 1914, was in his time chiefly known, and now chiefly remembered, for two things. First would be his work as co-founder of the Inland Waterways Association, which was instrumental in the rejuvenation of the British canal system, which, by the mid 20th century, had long fallen into disrepair.

The second would be for his career as a writer of what he called “strange stories.” While he wrote all his life, Aickman was something of a late-bloomer, publishing most of his work after the age of 40. Still, he must have felt that being an author was in his blood. His maternal grandfather was Richard Marsh, a contemporary of Bram Stoker whose macabre and spooky novel The Beetle initially outsold Dracula upon release.

Aickman was a believer in ghosts and the supernatural, and as a young man participated in ‘ghost hunting’ investigations, which included excursions to the Borley Rectory, which was infamous as one of the most haunted buildings in England.

When he began writing stories in earnest, Aickman had become editor of the Fontana Book of Ghost Stories, generally including one of his own recent tales in the mix.

Robert Aickman wrote 48 “Strange Stories,” In addition to a handful of novels and novellas. While not great in number, Aickman’s stories stand alone not only in their economy and effectiveness of characterization, but also in their ability to submerge the reader into the feeling of a real dream, or nightmare. These are subtle stories which, while they aren’t necessarily to everyone’s taste, they have nonetheless gained new life, an “Aickmannessance,” if you will, thanks to the wide availability of Faber & Faber’s reprints, the masterful and astute readings by actor Reece Shearsmith, available on Audible, and of course deluxe volumes of his stories under their original titles published by Tartarus Press, run by authors R.B Russell, and Rosalie Parker. Russell also wrote a fantastic biography of Aickman, also available by Tartarus.

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