The Dark Demons Of Monty James
The supernatural fiction of Montague Rhodes James represents one of the most important contributions to the English Ghost Story. In any list of ‘top ten’ ghost story authors, James must rank very highly. Yet his thirty-odd offerings do not really qualify as ‘ghost’ stories; they are more accurately described as tales of ‘demonic’ retribution or vengeance, since the supernatural entities which characteristically appear in the average Jamesian tale owe more to the monstrous creations from classical mythology than they do to the conventional Victorian stereotype of a ghost as a pale, ethereal version of a deceased person. Even when he does feature a conventional ghost, James invariably embellishes its appearance with unpleasant tactility which often masquerades for deeper psychological issues.
Mainstream critics have often been disturbed by this facet of James’s writing, suspecting Freudian links between his short stories and his alleged platonic homosexuality. Given that he spent his entire adult life working with adolescent boys and young men in an all-male academic environment, one might reasonably intuit that James was subconsciously troubled by this issue, and thus sublimated his concerns and frustrations via his writing. Yet serious critical study of James’s work from these psychological perspectives has been persistently scorned by self-acclaimed ‘scholars’ of the supernatural. In particular, both Ghosts & Scholars and the Ghost Story Society (aka The Ash-tree Press ) have gone to quite extraordinary lengths to misrepresent M.R. James in a rose-tinted light of sycophantic adoration. Time and time again, valid speculation by respected critics has been rejected or ignored because it did not conform to the ‘honeyed’ image which the proprietors of those organisations wished to portray. In one case, a very perceptive novel-length literary analysis of James’s work was rejected, even though much has been made by critics and readers alike of the absence of such a study.
One is entitled to question the motives for this apparent suppression of objective literary evaluation. Undoubtedly those involved in GSS and G&S have a very strong vested interest in distorting and controlling M.R. James’s image, both in financial terms and in genre kudos. Then there is the fact that if James were to be perceived as a sexually frustrated homosexual (or worse, a frustrated paedophile), it would rock the foundations upon which their fan-based empires are based, much as has happened to Michael Jackson and Gary Glitter. Indeed, The Ash-tree Press owners derive their entire income from James related product, besides having named their business after one of his key tales. Finally, having decided very early on to live with a lie, the GSS and G&S cannot now admit to having misjudged the darker psychologically nuances behind James’s supernatural fiction without much loss of face. It should therefore come as no surprise that in addition to dismissing unwelcome speculation about M.R. James, that they then go to quite extraordinary lengths to attack those who do wish to explore these issues.
The Haunted River is the first - and thusfar, only - website to offer a platform for objectively analysing the short stories of M.R. James from a psychological and / or sexual perspective. As this section develops, we hope to feature articles and criticism by Julia Briggs, Colin Wilson, Jonathan Miller and Reggie Oliver; a checklist of references to similarly speculative articles that have appeared in various newspapers and books over the last eighty years; a checklist of quotes in which James has been discussed; and essays on specific stories and themes. Our intended aim is not to demonise M.R. James, simply to correct the massive critical imbalance that exists, thus paving the way for intelligent and enlightened understanding of his outstanding ‘demon tales’.