Ersatz TLS discussion

🎃 10 writers and 10 books with 'ghost' in the title. Do you know the titles?

1. Pat Barker
2. Robert Harris
3. M.R. James
4. Arthur Koestler
5. Norman Mailer
6. Sharyn McCrumb
7. Hilary Mantel
8. Philip Roth
9. Sue Townsend
10. Oscar Wilde

Answers
1. (view spoiler)[The Ghost Road (hide spoiler)]
2. (view spoiler)[The Ghost (hide spoiler)]
3. (view spoiler)[Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (hide spoiler)]
4. (view spoiler)[The Ghost in the Machine (hide spoiler)]
5. (view spoiler)[Harlot's Ghost (hide spoiler)]
6. (view spoiler)[Ghost Riders (hide spoiler)]
7. (view spoiler)[Giving up the Ghost (hide spoiler)]
8. (view spoiler)[Exit Ghost (hide spoiler)]
9. (view spoiler)[Ghost Children (hide spoiler)]
10. (view spoiler)[The Canterville Ghost (hide spoiler)]

Good game 👻

And I forgot a book I like very much:
11. Michael Ondaatje (view spoiler)[Anil's Ghost (hide spoiler)]

I remembered this one, perhaps better known as a film
12. R.A.Dick (view spoiler)[The Ghost and Mrs Muir (hide spoiler)]

Gpfr wrote: "And I forgot a book I like very much:
11. Michael Ondaatje [spoilers removed]"

Well, I got one anyway.

CCCubbon wrote: "I remembered this one, perhaps better known as a film
12. R.A.Dick "

Love the film, don't know the book.

This one’s in my TBR pile
13. Doireann Ni Ghriofa (view spoiler)[ A Ghost in the Throat (hide spoiler)]

Lovely quiz, gpfr. I only knew 1 and 10 and 11. Liked all of them, though 1 and 11 a lot more.

Here is a very difficult guess (I would assume) by
14. Friedrich Schiller (view spoiler)[ The Ghost-seer (hide spoiler)], a title I came across thanks to Alwynne. Have not tackled reading it yet - anyone else?

An additional novel came to mind, by Isabel Allende, but I was wrong: It's "spirits", not "ghosts"!
The House of the Spirits

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "14. Friedrich Schiller [ The Ghost-seer (hide spoiler)], a title I came across thanks to Alwynne. Have not tackled reading it yet - anyone else?"

The Schiller is, I believe, only a fragment - I read it in Gothic Tales of Terror, Volume Two: Classic Horror Stories from Europe and the United States and enjoyed it. As I recall, it involves a medium who is a con man and an international conspiracy (Wiki tells me of Jesuits, though I don't recall that myself). The same volume included Charles Brockden Brown's Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist which also involved a world-wide conspiracy, this one more along the lines of the Illuminati.

Ha, the difficult guess proved easy, after all! Well done.
Yes, the text is unfinished. My edition of it forms part of Schiller's complete (as far as possible) works. Ha, I am sure there is a subgenre of Jesuits conspiracies - and then some.

Not a ghost story, but uncanny: Have just decided to start reading Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte: Mit den Farbholzschnitten von Ernst Ludwig Kirchner . I only just found out how often it was taken up and adapted! Musically, too.

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Have just decided to start reading Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte: Mit den Farbholzschnitten von Ernst Ludwig Kirchner"

I haven't read "Peter Schlemihl", but have a translation in Twelve German Novellas, without the Farbholzschnitten. I believe the character appears in Hoffmann's "Die Abenteuer der Sylvester-Nacht" and, perhaps as a result of that, in the opera The Tales of Hoffmann. (Gothic Tales of Terror, Volume Two: Classic Horror Stories from Europe and the United States also included "Rat Krespel", another "tale" featured in Offenbach's opera, as well as the story that was the basis for Der Freischütz.)

Thanks! These playshifting (?) characters and their meandering paths are of interest to me. Lots to read up, and listen to, still. I am not at all systematic about this, but it is fun, and I regret my own meandering reading and listening paths only sometimes.

Meanderings:
Have been reading tales recently, so the von Chamisso fits in nicely. Tales not just by Angela Carter (recommend), but also by Marlen Haushofer, the author of The Wall (recommend). Haushofer's tales are not a recommend at all, though...

Sorry, gpfr: Meandered away from ghosts!

Edit:
This is not fiction, though I thought it a great, important read at the time:

15. Adam Hochschild (view spoiler)[King Leopold's Ghost (hide spoiler)]
Any (dis)agreement?

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: ".Not a ghost story, but uncanny: Have just decided to start reading Peter Schlemihls wundersame Geschichte: Mit den Farbholzschnitten von Ernst Ludwig Kirchner by Adelbert von Chamisso."

Reply:

Schlemiel is a Yiddish term meaning "incompetent person" or "fool". It is a common archetype in Jewish humor, and so-called "schlemiel jokes" depict the schlemiel falling into unfortunate situations. (Wikipedia)

I knew this word, and so assume that the author used the name 'Schlemihl' deliberately...

Good point, scarlet! Yes, it seems an appropriate name for the hapless protagonist, who, with his shadow sold to a mysterious man (demon?), is very much down on his luck despite newly acquired mountains o'things... and it appears that the ladies require men who cast shadows, too, so no luck there either. In addition, the painter who was called in to help can't attach a permanent shadow to him either, you might be surprised to learn (or not). I like it very much, so far. You need to suspend disbelief though: Being without a shadow makes you ostracized in the society depicted... that's described really well, and chilling.

Edit: Here is a link to an English-language edition: Peter Schlemiel: The Man Who Sold His Shadow

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Good point, scarlet! Yes, it seems an appropriate name for the hapless protagonist..."

I'm glad you think there is something in my suggestion, which was tentative as I don't know the book.

PS - It has just occurred to me that the German text-book which our teacher used in the early 1960s contained a story about a 'man without a shadow', though whether based on Chamisso's story or an older myth I could not say.

Hello again scarlet, it took me a while, but I have finished reading Schlemihl and am now certain that von Chamisso was the first to use this motif, though I am not sure in how far the early nineteenth-century language of the novella would make sense in the context of learning German!

James Krüss, a children's author, later was inspired by this and wrote a story on a young boy selling his laughter, which was adapted to a miniseries for children - that one impressed me very much! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timm_Th... Shown by the BBC as "The Legend Of Tim Tyler". No ghosts, again, but uncanny.

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "I am not sure in how far the early nineteenth-century language of the novella would make sense in the context of learning German!"

Our text-book seemed to specialise in (probably simplified) passages from old myths... we'd have done fine if the exam. text had been about witches or suchlike. Unfortunately, it was about helicopters! I was one of around 8/33 to actually pass - the teacher was uninspiring, though TBF she had very little time with us. Mrs. Winkler had been married to a German, but was (I think) already widowed and quite elderly at the time.

(My grandfather had been a teacher of Latin and German at the school in his time...)

Well done, there! I think it might take a while until helicopters enter the mythical realm, though with "Apocalypse now", it's not that unlikely.

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "Well done, there! I think it might take a while until helicopters enter the mythical realm, though with "Apocalypse now", it's not that unlikely."

An interesting film - brilliant for the first 2/3rds. with the helicopter attack making even almost-pacifists (and definite Vietnam war opponents) such as myself understand the passages in which Michael Herr presents war as not only horrifying, but also exhilarating... . Perhaps the sound etiting is almost as important as the images - not only in that outstanding helicoper attack scene, but also at the very opening of the film, where the Martin Sheen character lies on his bed, recalling a helicopter attack... we move on from the sound of the choppers to the Doors' 'The End', blending in and out until we finish with Sheen seeing the roof fan - which sounds just like a chopper...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5L61...

The final section, 'starring' Marlon Brando, was badly misjudged - IMO, of course.

If there is a better opening to a film, I have yet to see it... (some are equally as good, for example Fellini's opening of 8 1/2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SD_kj...

(I hope you take the time to watch this - it took me some work to find a version with the original soundtrack - which makes a huge difference!)

Orson Welles' opening to 'Touch of Evil' is superb for a different reason - a technical masterpiece, given what equipment was available at the time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EhmYY...

I'll shut up now (I'm a bit of a cinephile - or was until I got old!)

Shelflife_wasBooklooker wrote: "(James Krüss) wrote a story on a young boy selling his laughter..."

Very bad idea! I would never do that - I laugh loud and often, most recently over several passages in Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead... it's surprising, and nice, to find a Nobel prize winner who has written such an interesting and witty novel without disappearing up their own backside.

I do like Nietzsche's comment:

"We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh."

though, of course, I can't vouch for the precision of the translation.

I always forget to look at the various Special Topics threads so I missed this one until recently. A few random comments on topics raised so far:

I plan to re-read Chamosso's Peter Schlemiel soon along with La Motte Fouqué's Undine and a few other things as I've decided to embark on a bit of a carsh-course in German literature. Mostly it'll be stuff I haven't read before but I'll re-visit a few favourites too, though only shorter pieces.

Herr's Dispatches - I think Kubrick used this book as one of the sources for hs Vietnam movie, Full Metal Jacket, didn't he? A good movie, but not one of his best, I would say.

Apocalypse Now: this movie really blew me away when I saw it at the theatre on its first release. the use of music, including The Doors' The End was striking. The extended version is very much worth seeking out, if you've never seen it. There's been one odd change in my attitude towards this movie, though: ever since I read somewhere that Harvey Keitel was the original casting choice for the rôle that afterwards went to Martin Sheen, I can't help regretting the change - no disrespect or criticism meant towards Sheen, who did a fine job. But I think it would have been an even better film with Keitel, who for me has always been one of the very best actors of his generation.

BTW, it might be of interest to some film buffs that the current Dune movie pays tribute to Brando's famous turn as Kurtz - or so it seems to me: I haven't seen anyone else commenting on this but it looks like a pretty unmistakable lift/homage to me.

Forgot to post my quiz answers:

1. Pat Barker - The Ghost Road
2. Robert Harris - The Ghost Writer
3. M.R. James - Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
4. Arthur Koestler - The Ghost in the Machine
5. Norman Mailer - Harlot's Ghost
6. Sharyn McCrumb - ?
7. Hilary Mantel - ?
8. Philip Roth - The Ghost Writer
9. Sue Townsend - ?
10. Oscar Wilde - The Something-with-a-C Ghost

The only ones I've read are the MR James, Mailer's HG. the Oscar Wilde story, and I thought the Roth book, though I see I made the same guess for both the Roth and the Harris, so one or both are probably wrong.

Berkley wrote: "Forgot to post my quiz answers:..."

You can check your answers by clicking on the "spoiler"s in the first post.

Thanks - yes, I see my mistake with the Harris and Roth books: checking my shelves, there is a Roth novel titled 'The Ghost Writer', which I have read, but it wasn't the one referred to in the quiz. The Harris book I've never read but I vaguely remembered hearing about it somewhere and must have somehow gotten the idea that it was about a ghost writer, though I see that that wasn't the actual title.

Berkley wrote: "Thanks - yes, I see my mistake with the Harris and Roth books: ..."

The Harris book is indeed about a ghost writer. A rather good film was made of it which I saw before reading the book. The book was one of the quite large and eclectic collection of English books on the shelves of a flat I rented for a holiday in Budapest. The owners (Hungarian) were living in England at the time.