The Mist in the Mirror

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Our story is framed by our unnamed narrator who sits and talks with Sir James Monmouth for a while at their club and then gets involved in an after-dinner ghost story fest. After the men break up their after-dinner chat, the narrator is joined by Sir James on his walk home. Sir James tells him that he'd like our man to read an account he's written up "of certain--events." He doesn't just ask him... Disappointingly, Hill never fully develops these existential themes. For want of meaning, Monmouth works, and researching Vane, he uncovers the mystery of his past and of the hauntings he has been experiencing. A curious manuscript. The specter of a small child. Cold fevers. Unheeded warnings. Rain and a ubiquitous sense of gloom. That’s right, it’s a ghost story. The Mist in the Mirror, originally published by Susan Hill in 1992 and now available as a Vintage original, never strays far from convention, and while this is a bold choice, it is not altogether successful. It throws out every cliche in the British Ghost Story Handbook.Old houses,aristocratic families,exploration of the Empire,ghostly children, gentleman's clubs, and unspeakable evil figure prominently. I was startled - the verb 'startled' makes us feel nervous and anticipate more sudden ghostly happenings.

The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and cinema-derived rhetoric up the ante continuously, and stunningly. One of the most impressive excursions into the supernatural in many a year. A nameless narrator opens the novel and shows his intrigue for a fellow club member named James Monmouth. It turns out Monmouth has a deep, dark secret that can be explained by reading his manuscript. The rest of the novel focuses on the retelling of this manuscript. Monmouth was orphaned at a young age and became a global traveler, enjoying the excitement of exotic locations.Sir James Monmouth has spent many years travelling and now ventures to England. On arrival he feels like he is being watched by someone and as he continues on his travels he uncovers some dark secrets about his past. The tale begins, typically, with a chat about ghosts in a private club where gentlemen don’t take the matter of phantasms too seriously. Their collective attempt to pass the time telling ghost stories fails, and one of the company finally declares: “We had better leave the telling of them to the professionals.”

The Mist in the Mirror: A Ghost Story is a novel by Susan Hill. The novel is about a traveller called Sir James Monmouth and his pursuit of an explorer called Conrad Vane. [1] Summary [ edit ] It felt like some of the 'creepy' scenes were there just as an effort to try to be 'creepy' rather than to play any actual part in the story, which made them feel forced. I felt confused, teased by it - Kipps' confusion is demonstrated in his use of two verbs here, as if he cannot decide which word to use.I went to a window, and saw that the library ran along the north end of the buildings framing the yard, at right angles to the chapel. Sir James spent his young life in Africa. Orphaned and largely alone in the world he began an obsessive exploration to discover the mysterious facets of renowned explorer, Conrad Vane’s, life. His search brought him home to England and there he is met with stonewalling, fear, and blatant disrespect when he makes the nature of his search known. It does, however, also bring him some of the answers he has been long looking for, along with many a strange occurrence and ghastly sighting. The moody countryside wanderings of an adventurer Hill ( A Question of Identity, 2013, etc.) sends on a glacially paced adventure in search of the truth about his hero. All the while, Monmouth is haunted by images of a young boy following him around as well as crying in the night. He also comes across a strange mirror in a former abode of Vane's that instantly mists up when he tries to see into it. What unsettles Monmouth the most is when his own family name comes up in the research into Vane's past. It seems that his ancestors may have been linked in some way to Vane and that his curious urge to investigate Vane may have been preordained.

Part of my issue was the writing. I find that writing which mimics older styles tend to be very hit or miss for me. Sometimes I find the language lush and inviting, and other times I find it to be a barrier to understanding. This book fell into the latter category. I kept finding myself wondering why we needed quite so many words to say so little... A chilling, classically-inspired ghost story from Susan Hill, our reigning mistress of spine-tingling fiction. Of course, part of that was the repetition. There's only so many times Monmouth can talk about how some landscape of England impressed him just as much as any of the farflung locations he spent his life visiting, or how he found England different, but comfortably so, from what he was used to, or how he found part of England vaguely familiar... so on and so forth. And as he learns more about his hero’s past, he discovers that they are only the beginning, for Kittiscar Hall is hiding terrible secret that will bind their lives together in ways he could never have imagined.

Not only the 19th century, then, but perhaps the academic and religious settings of M.R. James? But who is our narrator? And why is he so unsettled? But the problem is we're told. We don't experience it, because, written as a sort of diary, he tells us how he was feeling without giving that level of detail which makes it feel present. I loved it !I virtually inhaled it.In other words it's not very original but it's beautifully assembled.It doesn't really make a lot of sense and it's strictly for aficionados of the genre.