A guest post by Red Rocker!
Do you like ghost stories?
The very first ghost story I ever read was The Whistling Room by William Hope Hodgson. It’s about a room where a very bad thing happened, a long time ago. Perhaps because it was the first ghost story I’d ever read, haunted house stories have been my favorites ever since. All I need to see is mention of a cold spot without a corresponding draft, a shadow standing in the window of a deserted room, a door which will not stay shut – or open – and I’m hooked. Let the haunting begin.
I have forgotten most of the haunted house stories I’ve read – they may raise goosebumps at the moment, but there is nothing in them that returns to make me uneasy the day after. A few images do stay with me: I’ve never forgotten the long black hairs caught up in the coat buttons of Maupassant’s protagonist in A Ghost. I’ve always wondered about who was knocking on the walls in Shirley Jackson’s Hill House: old Miss Crain? Eleanor’s mother? Something not dead because it was never alive? And of course every time I stay in a hotel room I check the picture frames to make sure they are exactly plumb. Curse you Stephen King and room 1408.
Most ghost stories are in the horror genre: they are predicated on a bad thing that happened, a vengeful spirit scaring the bejeezus out of anyone foolish enough to return to the scene of the crime. They are predicated on fear. But every so often we encounter another kind of ghost.
William Sidney Porter (better known under his pen name, O Henry) wrote short stories at the end of the 19th century. He is most famous for the plot twist that comes at the end of the story – which he might be said to have invented. But he is more than that: he can capture a person, a place or a city in a handful of words. He can make you laugh – one of the funniest stories ever is The Ransom of Red Chief. But underlying the laughter is the recognition of the sadness and tragedy of the human condition. He did not usually write ghost stories, but he did write one or two. Here is his explanation of why:
Hence the houses of this district, having had a thousand dwellers, should have a thousand tales to tell, mostly dull ones, no doubt; but it would be strange if there could not be found a ghost or two in the wake of all these vagrant guests.
The line is taken from the short story The Furnished Room. This story is not predicated on murder or an act of violence, or horror or fear. The ghost in this story – if there can even be said to be a ghost – is an unusual ghost. It won’t scare the bejeezus out of you. But it won’t leave you unmoved. The “thousand lives” Porter writes of were not easy lives, and this is not an easy tale. I offer you a Hallowe’en story for grown ups.
You can read The Furnished Room here
And listen to it here.
Minerva on 
Red Rocker on 
Joivre on 
Beth on 
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{ 8 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you for posting the link to The Furnished Room. I have never read it. It was one of the most sad and wistful ghost stories I’ve read. It reminded me of Petrarch and Laura.
Yes, thanks for the link to that story, Red Rocker. I am a fan of O. Henry’s stories but had never read that one before. I agree with Joivre that it is more sad and wistful than scary or a horror story, although it has certain elements that could fit into that category. In fact, if one were to interpret the room itself to having a kind of malignant personality, then it could in fact have lured both of the lovers to their doom. That last line in the story, by the landlady, gives the surprise twist so typical of O. Henry, but I think it’s up to the individual reader to determine whether the story is simply a “wistful” ghost story or something perhaps a bit more malign.
I love the description of the carpet on the stairs at the beginning. I’ve not read anything of O. Henry before, but in this story he has a real knack for not only bringing the room itself to life, but actually developing its character. It almost seems as if the room senses its occupant’s mood. While it begins by receiving him with a “perfunctory welcome”, the imagery it displays to him as he sits in the chair – the “prisoners trying to feel their way to sun and air”, the “horrible monster that had been slain during the stress of some grotesque convulsion” etc. – all serve to set the tone for the eventual outcome of the story. The room almost seems to be pulling him towards despair and hoplessness.
Like a lot of other canny writers (JKR comes to mind! ), O Henry never comes out and says: this is what this is. The story is capable of different interpretations, including the possibility that the whole sequence of events is a series of coincidences which are not causally linked. I never thought of the room as having a specific or intentional malignant personality. Instead I viewed it as a symptom of the general indifference of the world which grinds down the “transients in abode, transients in heart and mind”.
I’m curious about the mole. Simply an identifying feature? A flaw in herself that she found intolerable and he didn’t mind? It’s intriguing.
I thought it was a unique identifier.
I agree about the girlfriend’s mole, Red Rocker. Without that as an identifier, how would the reader know for sure that the young lady who committed suicide in that room was her? Also, when we get that little chat between the landlady and her friend, it seems perhaps that that room is REALLY unlucky, as she’s probably had several people who’ve committed suicide in it–her view, of course, is that if she tells the truth to the prospective renters, they won’t want the room. I don’t know, however, that I completely agree that the room itself doesn’t have a malignant personality. It seems pretty clear that the room offers up the perfume that the male renter recognizes as having belonged to his beloved. Would he have committed suicide had he not first scented that perfume, and then have it vanish on him? As long as he had hope he could find her, I don’t think he would have committed suicide. The room, then, as I see it, is kind of a room version of a Venus Flytrap. Any renter who goes in there is at risk!
Your thoughts?
I see your point Fricka. I think it might depend on the renter.
From Mr. King’s Shining for example – “Well, you know, Doc, when something happens, you can leave a trace of itself behind. Say like, if someone burns toast. Well, maybe things that happen leave other kinds of traces behind. Not things that anyone can notice, but things that people who “shine” can see. Just like they can see things that haven’t happened yet. Well, sometimes they can see things that happened a long time ago. I think a lot of things happened right here in this particular hotel over the years. And not all of ‘em was good.”
The scent part of the story is interesting. How many times have we smelled a perfume that brought us back to memories of a time in our lives when we were wearing it. And these memories flare up so quickly. I was actually present when my dear Aunt died from cancer awhile back. Her last words were “I smell bread”.