posted on 21 Jan 2016

The English Ghost: spectres through time by Peter Ackroyd

I have to admit that I was prompted to read this book by David Bowie. Well, actually, more by some of David Bowie’s obituaries that claimed Ackroyd was one of the singers favourite writers. I have got several titles I’ve never read of his work and this was the most recent that I picked up in a second hand shop.

I have to be honest and say that despite its spicy title, this is possibly one of the dullest books I’ve read for some time. By far the most entertaining part of the book is Ackroyd’s introduction where I got the distinct impression he was having some fun with his readers. He strikes an interesting pose in this opening section – somewhere between the fascinated but impartial observer and the host of one of those absurd creepy tale horror portmanteaus so beloved of Hammer films. It’s not too much of a stretch to see him in a smoking jacket, settling back in a wing armchair, smiling slyly as he talks about ghosts and ghouls. After all, he seems to be saying, they don’t really exist…….or do they?

There is something essentially insubstantial and arch about Ackroyd’s  essay and he’s clearly much more interested in the existence of ghosts as an unbroken cultural  lineage than he is about whether there is any verifiable or scientific proof of the existence of some kind of afterlife. While I have some sympathy with this approach, I still think he was only working on two cylinders when he put this together.

The introduction is merely the appetiser for what is effectively a cornucopia of ghostly manifestations and tales culled from across the centuries – rumours, old newspaper reports, diaries and local records are all plundered. The examples are then presented without embellishment and are often very short – very few are longer than a page or two. Whilst they have a passing and temporary interest, these examples are the essentially tedious element of the book. After I’d read half a dozen examples of mysterious scraping on floors and walls, odd footfalls, disembodied voices and balls of luminous gas I’d had enough. Really? Can’t the spirit world do any better than this?

I’m quite prepared to believe that people believe. Why should I doubt those who claim to have experienced the unexplainable when we live in a world full of unexplainable events. How is it possible to explain, for example, the existence of Donald Trump and Sarah Palin or the fact that Margaret Thatcher won three general elections or that Tony Blair was in the Labour Party? With mysteries like that still to solve, a bit of chain rattling in the dark or an odd gaseous emanation after some late night drinking all seems a bit pedestrian.

 

Terry Potter

January 2016