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Eerie, atmospheric, almost Victorian, Aickman's stories are all about hints and omens, tension and suspense. Very few of the mysteries in these stories are solved; instead one is left with an uneasy sense that there are some Very Nasty Things out there. Just around the corner or down the alley. In the dark.I think my favorite was "The View," in which a man recovering from some unspecified illness goes on holiday, on his doctor's recommendation. On the boat over to the island that is his destinat...
Drops off significantly for the last 3 stories, but solid otherwise.
Their love was like a magnifying glass between them.I picked this up along with Cold Hand in Mine because both sport a very nice cover by Edward Gorey.Most of these are about the haunting that wasn’t quite there, but a few involve an explicit twisting of reality, a secluded manor, or the hand of god. Even then, though, we see them obliquely, through the eyes of one who does not understand, and partly for this reason survives to tell their story.
Robert Aickman is one of my favorite writers. He's a great supernatural fiction writer and pretty much everything he wrote can be put under that genre but at the same time you could also put him up there with Kafka, in terms of bizzare and unsettling little stories which poke at bigger questions. I have to say, that everything I read about him talks about his vagueness as a writer, which could be true but I feel it is more that he chooses not to reveal information that could undermine his story....
Stand-outs for me:-Ringing the Changes-The School Friend-Marriage-The View
Aickman's open, slippery narratives take one on uneasy journeys through bewildering situations."Ravissante" is inspirational. I'm not the only one who thinks so:https://themenaceofobjects.wordpress....I also enjoyed "The View" and "The School Friend". The rest are hit-and-miss.Update 3/2022:Revisiting this. My favorites still pack a punch, "Ravissante" in particular. "The Houses of the Russians" is probably at a less exalted level, the (overly) leisurely setup leading to the cryptic and uncomfor...
Robert Aickman was an expert at spinning strange, uncanny stories full of symbolism that touch on the horrors of daily life. They're so multi-layered that they almost require several readings; even then, I wasn't sure I had picked up on everything. Even when he's writing a standard ghost story ("The Waiting Room"), he's better and more interesting than pretty much any other writer who attempts it. Unfortunately, Aickman is still relatively unknown in the U.S., and a good chunk of his stories are...
Aickman's short stories never quite go where the reader expects them to, often straddling a particularly unsettling line between metaphor and non sequitur. Most of the stories in this collection fell just short of achieving the tone of truly weird that marks the stories of H.P. Lovecraft or Brian Evenson, and left me feeling like there was some secret at the heart that I failed to unravel.
There's creepiness, but these stories haven't aged well.
This was a mostly mediocre collection that I had a hard time finishing. The stories were either overly obscure or boring.Ravissante - 3 starsThe Houses of the Russians - 3 stars, but unclear on the symbolism being used, especially the orthodox feast day. The View- 2 starsRinging the Changes - 4 stars, great atmosphereThe School Friend- 3 stars, somewhat intriguing yet also bewildering The Waiting Room - 1 star, very pedestrian Marriage - 4 stars, the best of the collection Larger than Oneself -
My average rating for the stories in _Painted Devils_ comes out to 3.38. My three star goodreads rating for this short story collection by Robert Aickman might surprise some people. The poet W.H. Auden made the point that not everything by Shakespeare is outstanding. Similarly, I judge that some of Aickman's lesser stories are in this book."Ravissante" is about a symbolist painter whose checked sensuality is awakened by a visit to the widow of a famous painter. The widow urges him to rifle throu...
Painted Devils by Robert Aickmam is a collection of his modern British ghost stories.This rarely happens to me, but when reading the ending of Marriage, it actually got to me and I almost dropped the book. Perfect stories for Halloween and October or a scary Summer read.
I love Robert Aickman and this book doesn't disappoint. James Scott Bell writes that every short story needs to have a "shattering event." Aickman's genius is in leaving you in no doubt that you've vicariously experienced one, even if you can't quite put your finger on exactly what it was...Aickman is to strange stories what Wodehouse is to humour.
Respected this more than I enjoyed it. I'm not sure if I've read Aickman before, but he's good--great prose, terrific sense of mood, willingness to let the creeps settle in without ever overselling. But about half the stories in this collection, I felt like I was missing some crucial piece of information that would've made them really click in my mind. I assume that's more my fault than the author's, but it meant I felt at a remove throughout. That might be the intended effect, but it also meant...
Stephen King recommended author and book. Noted as "important to the genre we have been discussing" from Danse Macabre, published in 1981. Author discussed in chapter 9.
