Lost Hearts
‘ The moon shone upon his almost transparent hands, and Stephen saw that the nails were fearfully long and that the light shone through them.’
Lost Hearts – M. R. James
Welcome to M. R. James month. This was the day I revisited one of my favourite childhood ghost stories and found it a tiny, weeny bit…
Underwhelming.
I know, M.R. James is king of all that is supernatural and spine-tingling— I’m fully signed up to the fan club people—but after a week reading of sinister pictures and screams in the night, Lost Hearts is horrendously disappointing.
It’s not unusual for M. R. James to build tension by letting the reader know that the strange noises, people or entire hotel doors our hero is dismissing are actually sinister as hell. It’s the literary equivalent of ‘it’s behind you!’, but I would argue that this only really works when the hero is actively doing something to either investigate the odd goings on or running around actively bring doom on themselves by blowing mysterious whistles. In this story Stephen, our 12-year-old hero, does very little at all.
I’m usually against spoilers but the plot here is essentially,
- Boy goes to stay with creepy relation called Mr Abney.
- Boy hears that creepy relation takes in random children who disappear, and NOBODY THINKS THIS IS SUSPICIOUS.
- Boy has a bad dream
- Boy does nothing.
- Boy sees some creepy pointy fingered children hanging out in the garden.
- Boy does nothing again.
- Boy pops downstairs and find creepy relation horribly dead with heart missing.
- Boy stumbles across a convenient written confession that explains Mr Abney’s sacrificial child-killing fixation.
Maybe I’m having a reaction to the lack of adorably dim academics on holiday but come on. There are plot holes you could drive a sacrificial bull through. For a start, it’s hardly sporting of the undead little tykes to wait years to kill their murderer, why didn’t the first ghoul girl come back and use her pointy fingers to save the little Italian boy? Also, can Mr. Abney really dissect kids in the middle of a servant filled Regency household without someone noticing?
It’s not like he could get out the carpet cleaner.
Yet, despite everything I’ve got to admit this certainly appealed to eleven-year-old me and there is the odd spooky moment; so, even on a bad day M. R. James is still king.
Next it’s The Treasure of Abbot Thomas
Verdict
* (1 screaming nightmare of 5)
Keep a nail clipper by your bed and you’ll sleep just fine.
M. R. James bingo
Some spectacular examples of ignoring the blindingly obvious here with a good helping of 19th century/20th century snobbery/racism to boot.
Ditching friends or offers of company on holidayGetting into trouble on said holidayBook abuse- Ignoring the blindingly obvious facts/hints of others
GolfInterfering with an archaeological site- 19th century snobbery
The Story
The story can be found in James’s anthology Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (1904) and is included in most later collections of his stories. Depending on your country and copyright restrictions, you may be able to access the book legally and for free via Project Gutenberg.
The dedicated people at literature wiki have put together an excellent synopsis here.
K.M. Cooke 