Russell Kirk is well-known as an important conservative political theorist and essayist, publishing, in 1953, his influential The Conservative Mind, and authoring biographies of Edmund Burke and John Randolph. He helped William F. Buckley, Jr. found the National Review, and was a founder and editor of Modern Age.
What is perhaps less well-known are Kirk’s achievements as a writer of fantasy and ghost stories. I have only had the opportunity to read one volume of his ghost stories, but it is a superb specimen of the genre, focusing on the idea of evil forces or spirits that survive the cutting of their physical bonds to the natural world and the extinction of the mortal human vessels that nurtured them in life, to work their diabolical will in the realm of the living, reveling in the destructiveness that is the hallmark of evil.
In the title story of The Princess of All Lands, a young woman – Yolande - is driving home, her mind preoccupied with thoughts of the combination Halloween/birthday party that her family is having that evening. She spies a hitchhiker at an intersection - a woman somewhat younger than herself, but with a rough and hard-used appearance. Motivated by her natural kindness, she offers the girl a ride. The hitchhiker’s conversation is crude and occasionally obscene, and filled with the bitterness of a difficult and completely joyless life. Yolande has to go a considerable distance out of her way to take the hitchhiker where she wants to go, and as she becomes increasingly fearful of the girl, she talks about her own life, including her Indian heritage and the strange power of her “virtue” – in this sense, a power that presents itself almost as a distinct, other-worldly spirit in times of danger. Finally, feeling some vague menace in her passenger’s behavior and motives, Yolande decides to pull over and let her out not far from her destination, explaining that she has to get home. At this point, the passenger pulls out a pistol and compels Yolande to drive to a cabin in the woods, where a couple of male kinfolk are waiting. To her horror, Yolande finds that the girl has brought her to her father as a “birthday present.” Yolande is naturally horrified by this turn of events (foreshadowed, strangely, by a nightmarish recollection that she had passed on to the passenger during their ride together, of an evil relative who turned up several times in her life, apparently with designs against Yolande - always frustrated, but with disastrous results, nonetheless).
Yolande, however, frightened though she is, discerns the true nature of her would-be tormenters, and possessed by that protective spirit that has guarded her on previous dangerous occasions, confronts them with the truth that forces them to keep their long-delayed appointment with damnation.
There are nine stories in this volume, all enthralling, one of which – “There’s a Long, Long Trail A-Winding” – won the 1977 World Fantasy Award. At the conclusion of a delightful short prologue, Kirk explains his purpose thusly:
Have I ever seen a ghost? Why, I am one, and so are you – a geist, a spirit, in a mortal envelope. Why did I write these sepulchral fantasies? Why, partly to remind you and myself that we are spirits in prison; and mainly in the hope of discomforting an old man on a winter’s night, or a girl in the bloom of her youth. I have dwelt in haunted houses, and I have prepared a chamber for you. If I conjure up in you a dreadful joy, like that of a small boy on a secret stair, my malice will be satisfied.”
Well, darn it, I did read "The Conservative Mind"! Gotta get some points for that.
ReplyDeleteHe sounds freakin' fantastic. I'm writing that name down. The Paco Library strikes again!
ReplyDeleteIn response to Mr Train I will quote from a review of "The Essential Russell Kirk : Selected Essays" by Melbourne writer R.J. Stove:
ReplyDeleteThe case of Russell Amos Kirk (1918-1994) forces upon America's foreign well-wishers an all too urgent question: why does the United States export so diligently, and take such pride in, its very worst modern literature? There is a whole alternative canon of worthwhile recent American authors--including Kirk himself--whose names mean virtually nothing abroad; whereas every deadbeat psychopath, deadbeat drunk, deadbeat drug-fiend, deadbeat thug, deadbeat adulterer, deadbeat homosexual, deadbeat communist, and deadbeat plagiarist who ever drew breath on American soil appears assured not only of reverential Hollywood treatment but (if he does not commit suicide first) of the Nobel Literature Prize.
Is it that the concept of a recognisably adult American writer perplexes foreigners? Is it--more regrettable still--that this concept perplexes Americans (surely not)? At any rate, the nature of Kirk's reputation is instructive. Here is an American writer who gives the impression of having been born fully mature, and who has always attracted a devoted following within his homeland, while being largely unknown elsewhere. Today the number of Australians familiar with his output could comfortably be fitted into a broom cupboard, and still leave space for several brooms.
Also as part of a review of Ghost Stories Michael Dirda at the Washington Post wrote:
ReplyDeleteMany years ago I asked the conservative thinker Russell Kirk to review for Book World, and so we chatted on the phone for a few minutes. At the time I vaguely knew that Kirk had written fiction, but I now have no hesitation in agreeing with critic John Pelan that he is the greatest American author of ghostly tales in the classic style, at least of the post-World War II era. Ancestral Shadows: An Anthology of Ghostly Tales, edited by Vigen Guroian (Eerdmans, $25), reprints a goodly selection of Kirk's short fiction, but many readers will want the complete stories collected by John Pelan in two volumes: Off the Sand Road and What Shadows We Pursue (Ash-Tree, $45). Certainly Kirk deserves a wide readership, for he can be both terrifying and very moving.
For instance, books and book collecting have long provided inspiration for spooky plots, but the story "What Shadows We Pursue" shows us what can happen if we come to care more for our libraries than for the people around us. In "There's a Long, Long Road A-Winding," hobo Frank Sarsfield discovers a deserted house during a snowstorm. There, alone, he confronts his peculiar destiny, as he performs a "signal Act of contrition." It's not often that I cry at the end of a ghost story.
Both Pelan and Guroian emphasize that Kirk relates his tales from a Christian perspective -- a belief in Hell, divine providence, the spiritual nature of man. This is true but might suggest that they are a bit saccharine. Not at all. Kirk has a tremendous flair for narrative and a clear, plain style, while his principles imbue his tales with a sometimes Dostoevskyan power. I've only just started reading Russell Kirk, but then the season for ghost stories is only just beginning, and I can look forward to enjoying, among others, "The Surly Sullen Bell," "An Encounter at Mortstone Road" and "Watches at the Strait Gate." I can hardly wait for the next gloomy, storm-wracked evening.
I must confess that I haven't read any of his fiction only a few of his essays, and the Conservative Mind, and his biography of John Randolph.
Paco's review and others makes eager to try to track some of his fiction down.
MCB: Thanks a million for those interesting excerpts. I'm going to try and track down more of his stories, too.
ReplyDeleteOne other book of his I'd recommend is A Creature of the Twilight, a darkly satirical novel of post-colonial Africa.