Episode 31: 'A School Story' by M.R. James
In my blog post for Episode 30 (The Sea Raiders) I said that there was little point restating what I had already found perfectly stated elsewhere. With Episode 31 I find myself in the same position. Having been referring to the Fourth Fontana Book of Great Ghost Stories for the text, I re-read Robert Aickman's introduction to the same volume.
Stating his belief that A School Story deals with the "cosmology of the schoolboy", he expands thus:
"with, that is, a world of the imagination before the prison-house has closed upon him which, if not and fostered by the grown man, brings about the man's death with its own, and be the man never so assured and apparently in social demand. To my mind, certain of M.R. James's stories contain an element of patronage: one becomes aware as one reads of the really great man, the Provost of Eton, the engineer of the inscription on the Unknown Warrior's grave, relaxing; all too consciously descending a little, to divert, but also still further to edify, the company. A School Story I find free from this defect. The Provost knew about schoolboys."
One might, I suppose, take issue with Aickman's summation here, and possibly it is rather dismissive of the writer generally considered to be one of the masters of the ghost story. But I think Aickman does hit on what is good about an otherwise relatively slight entry in the M.R. James canon. I think, also, although he doesn't say as much, he chose this story for inclusion because it is the James story most similar to his own aesthetic.
For, in A School Story we have the ordinary scene (in this case, the schoolroom and dormitory) dealt with in matter-of-fact, ordinary terms, shaken (but only slightly) by a sequence of "strange" incidents, and at the centre is an enigmatic mystery. Is the engraved Byzantine coin somehow connected to the events or a plot device to confirm an identity in the story's "sequel"? Does the engraved year have any bearing on things, or is it a red herring? What did happen at the well in the yew thicket? Why should one particular schoolchild be used as a conduit for a supernatural message? These are things James doesn't provide easy answers for and the jigsaw puzzle has pieces missing.
Added to that, we have the story framed in a discussion about the ghost stories schoolboys tell each other and, in a manner that feels meta before people talked about things being meta, James (through his characters) indicates his suspicion that many such stories are stolen from books and periodicals, presumably stories like his own.
It's playful stuff, then. But still creepy. And creepy because James invites us to consider the strange events through the innocent eyes of the child. Aickman was right. The Provost knew schoolboys.
Here endeth the lesson.
Jasper
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