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Apro il commento con un sincero elogio alla casa editrice: non è da tutti rilanciare i nomi di autori classici vinti dal tempo. The style of story and writing puts me in mind of Stoker and Poe and Dahl's adult works where the reality of what is told only sinks in afterwards. Bind Your Hair’ follows a young woman, Clarinda, as visits her fiancé’s family home and develops a fascination with Mrs Pagani, a charismatic woman she meets at a party.

Home to William Golding, Sylvia Plath, Kazuo Ishiguro, Sally Rooney, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Max Porter, Ingrid Persaud, Anna Burns and Rachel Cusk, among many others, Faber is proud to publish some of the greatest novelists from the early twentieth century to today. In contrast to this is the notion of friendship, surviving the vicissitudes of life and time and offering a measure of clemency. But even if I had entered the read with higher expectations, I would hardly have been disappointed because Aickman is incredible when it comes to using language in surprising and effective ways, combining precision and imagination – e. he paints a picture of the night sky: the clouds and the treetops and the moon, all the stars in all of their strange remoteness.There is no clear plot or point usually, but I found myself thinking deeply about every one of these tales, wondering if there were some hidden meaning that I wasn't getting. James also left much to the imagination of the reader and his characters allways survive his horrors as well, but the kind of creatures and ghosts he created were far more original than anything on this collection. But Aickman belonged to a later, more liberated generation, and was freer to introduce deep, swirling undercurrents of sexuality into his haunting tales.

Faber Members get access to live and online author events and receive regular e-newsletters with book previews, promotional offers, articles and quizzes. A man named Pendlebury falls asleep on a train and ends up at the last stop, where he has no option but to spend the night in the waiting room. Prior to this book, my only experience reading Aickman's work was "The Hospice" in The Weird: A Compendium of Strange and Dark Stories. At first, it is a tongue-in-cheek look at the horrors of living a weekend with your in-law’s but all the while Aickman weaves a web of strangeness around the setting of the story. I was effortlessly drawn into nearly every story within a few sentences and held in thrall almost the entire time – wonderful!But Aickman doesn't ever revert to traditional horror tropes - there are no vampires here (or perhaps there are - but he would never go out and actually tell you).

Bind Your Hair has a woman engaged to a man, and visiting his perfectly nice relatives in the country. Considering my enjoyment of horror and strange fiction Aickman's praised tales were an obligatory stop, one from which I had anticipated reaping a great deal of deadfull pleasures and delights.I did enjoy this collection a bit more than Wine-Dark but that is directly related to all the discussion during the group read. I’m not in a wild hurry to read more of Aickman’s work, but I wouldn’t say no, either — maybe I’ll pick up more of it from the library, and give his novels a try. a younger woman sees things her way, and rushes forward; she may quail in fear but she will dance with the dead. The exception in this collection is "Ringing the Changes," which is overtly supernatural and is the most terrifying story here. An artist sees a different building every time he looks out of the window of his lover’s coastal home and… bleh?

Robert Aickman's writing style was a unique one, and I can see how his work might be an acquired taste for some. It’s funny because I complain about how open-ended Aickman leaves each story but the one time he gives a clear meaning I’m still not satisfied - dude just can’t do endings! I say music - the musical elements of the writing seem at times as important as the words, and the effect of the stories is similar.

While there she meets a strange local woman who lives near a maze where queasy Pagan rituals are held. My son reads these things in a couple of hours but the ironic thing is that it took months to pull together… What you don’t appreciate before you’re doing it is that you’re effectively playing director of a film. The stories are very much like those of M R James, in that they describe spooky goings on, and then come to a fairly abrupt halt. This collection contains only six stories, one of which I've read before ("Bind Your Hair") and an introduction by Dr Glen Cavaliero. Recommended if you like nuanced, slow burn horror (although the author preferred the term "strange stories").