The Mist in the Mirror

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Okay--I would like someone to explain some things to me. First, why on earth is that mirror in Pyre (the home of the Quincebridges and NOT of Monmouth and certainly not any relation of that innkeeper at the beginning of the story)? Second, we basically know why Monmouth is haunted by the boy's ghost, the misty mirror and all the rest, but why would our narrator start seeing things in the mirror? Just because he read Sir James Monmoth's notebooks? I also wish we were given a clearer picture of how the boy is related to Sir James. Obviously, they're kin of some sort, but what sort? Is that all related to the death of Monmouth's parents? If not, what really happened there? And why did Conrad Vane curse all the Monmouth men? (And--apparently anyone interested in them if we take our narrator's final vision as a preview of things to come.) We learn that Sir James Monmouth spent his childhood abroad, and as a young man travelled all over the globe, following in the footsteps of an earlier great pioneer, Conrad Vane. For the last twenty years Sir James Monmouth has become almost obsessed with both his quest, and Conrad Vane himself. Now he has returned to his family home in England, the remote Kittiscar Hall, which he cannot remember. He aims to research and trace Conrad Vane, having discovered that Conrad Vane’s life is inextricably entangled with his own. An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel - ten years in the making - that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted-house tale.

All is impression, and hints. What is the mysterious mirror? Does it show the future, or or something else? Susan Hill’s superbly crafted work enthralls the reader with its atmosphere and description. She is a master of the understated, using spare language when that is all that is needed: Susan Hill is a born story-teller of considerable talent. She can take a trope such as a mysterious, malevolent curse, mix it with her carefully described turn of the century London, plus the evocative North Yorkshire moors, imbue it with a feeling of doom and torment — the draughty, musty library, the sinister and threatening church — and a dash of something else.

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Monmouth may be a British citizen, but a woman he meets on the train considers him “alone in a strange country”, takes pity on him, and invites him to spend Christmas with her husband and family. Monmouth too admits, “I was, I confess, still out of place in London and isolated too, without a home, family or friends… I needed a purpose, and exploration into the life of Vane was giving me one, for the time being.” I still highly recommend Susan Hill’s work — it’s atmospheric, enthralling, and pitch-perfect. Read it for the mood and quality of the prose rather than waiting for the exciting plot revelations. The Mist in the Mirror has its flaws, but as with any Susan Hill novel it goes perfectly with a slow weekend of drizzling rain and several cups of tea. Not only the 19th century, then, but perhaps the academic and religious settings of M.R. James? But who is our narrator? And why is he so unsettled? Of course, part of that was the repetition. There's only so many times Monmouth can talk about how some landscape of England impressed him just as much as any of the farflung locations he spent his life visiting, or how he found England different, but comfortably so, from what he was used to, or how he found part of England vaguely familiar... so on and so forth. I did like the idea that the man, himself, was haunted more than a specific place. That was an interesting conceit to work with. But while a story like this relies on atmosphere and ambience, I never really felt it. Again, I think part of this is the writing, but more the old 'telling vs. showing' saw. We're told that he's going along, being all pleasantly in awe of his surroundings and the little flowers and whatnot - but then he gets a sense of dread, of being followed/watched, a sudden, dark pressure of terror.

But he soon begins to feel as though something is warning him away at every turn; there are the intense feelings of being watched and the strange apparitions of a sad little boy. millions of live fingers that crept over me, - this image is unnerving and particularly creepy. The personification of the mist makes it even more disturbing and threatening. The verb 'crept' adds to the sense of danger.enveloped everything - this alliteration emphasises how completely the mist has descended and creates a sense of entrapment. Such carefully controlled mounting tension creates a feeling of an earlier time, perhaps the 19th century, when in most classic novels of English literature, fear was merely a suggestion in the mind. And it continues:

This is told as a story within a story and I'm not sure that was entirely necessary or that it completely worked. Rain, rain all day, all evening, all night, pouring autumn rain. Out in the country, over field and fen and moorland, sweet-smelling rain, borne on the wind. Rain in London, rolling along gutters, gurgling down drains. Street lamps blurred by rain. A policeman walking by in a cape, rain gleaming silver on its shoulders. Rain bouncing on roofs and pavements, soft rain falling secretly in woodland and on dark heath. Rain on London's river, and slanting among the sheds, wharves and quays. Rain on suburban gardens, dense with laurel and rhododendron. Rain from north to south and from east to west, as though it had never rained until now and now might never stop. What started as a simple attempt to write a biography of his boyhood hero, the famous adventurer Conrad Vane, becomes increasingly strange, with a great sense of foreboding. Monmouth has many chances to abandon his quest for knowledge, but always refuses. The compulsion to learn more ever urges him onward, much as it does the reader, whose spine tingles as they learn more about Conrad Vane’s dreadful and nefarious secret. Gradually Monmouth learns that his life is bound together with that of his hero, in a way nobody could ever have imagined. Coupled with this sense of unease is the strange arrival of a pale and sad, ragged boy in dirty old-fashioned clothes. He is about twelve years old, and appears and disappears with regularity. But why is it that he appears whenever there is trouble, and then seems to vanish without a trace? Who is the old woman behind the curtain? And why is it that only he hears the chilling scream and the desperate sobbing?

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But if you enjoy an exceptionally written piece of prose, with all the hallmarks of good supernatural 19th century fiction, where the menacing mood is paramount, you will very probably enjoy this. Prepare to settle down to explore sinister dark alleyways and corridors, a haunted library, spectres and apparitions, a crypt, creepy mansions on the Yorkshire moors — not to mention the unexplained “soft breathing”. You may find that from time to time you cast a glance over your shoulder ... just in case.

A terrible curse has been passed down through the generations for hundreds of years. Concerned priests, elderly librarians, hysterical psychics — even total strangers counsel him with dire warnings: That would be Hill. Indeed, at times The Mist in the Mirror is as much a reflection on storytelling as it is on the supernatural; the characters are more likely to be found in libraries and old schoolyards than in crypts or dungeons, and when one of the gentlemen is sent a manuscript by a mysterious man from the club, he does what Hill clearly wants the reader to do: I loved it !I virtually inhaled it.In other words it's not very original but it's beautifully assembled.It doesn't really make a lot of sense and it's strictly for aficionados of the genre. The narrator of The Mist in the Mirror is Sir James Monmouth, whose tale begins as a simple attempt to write a biography of his boyhood hero, the famous adventurer Conrad Vane. Events rapidly become strange beyond all reason, and Monmouth is given several chances to abandon his quest for knowledge, but consistently refuses. He knows he could save himself — though he never thinks of it that way — but the compulsion to learn more goads him onward. It wouldn’t be a proper ghost story without free will leading someone merrily into Hell, would it?Our story is framed by our unnamed narrator who sits and talks with Sir James Monmouth for a while at their club and then gets involved in an after-dinner ghost story fest. After the men break up their after-dinner chat, the narrator is joined by Sir James on his walk home. Sir James tells him that he'd like our man to read an account he's written up "of certain--events." He doesn't just ask him... It throws out every cliche in the British Ghost Story Handbook.Old houses,aristocratic families,exploration of the Empire,ghostly children, gentleman's clubs, and unspeakable evil figure prominently. Thanks to Hill’s deceptively simple plots and straightforward prose, you won’t even notice the noose she’s slipping around your throat.” I was startled - the verb 'startled' makes us feel nervous and anticipate more sudden ghostly happenings.