I have just read "The Woman in Black" by Susan Hill. This is the first time I've read anything of that genre as my reading genres are pretty limited :(
Susan Hill is a classic writer and this book is a traditional gothic story.
My love of a good ghost story stems from childhood when my friend and I would scare each other witless with repetitive recounting from our repertoire of cheesy, clichéd stories. This is the best way. Oral retelling, at night, by candle light or camp fire. We were about age 11, the perfect age. Too old to need to run to a parent for comfort, but too young to be a cynical non believer. There was The Black Hand, the slightly less scary Brown Hand and a few local tales such as the Stone House in Dunorlan where no man would dare spend the night.
I first came across The Woman in Black as a movie in 1989. This was one of those old school movies where less was more and it was your own imagination that scared you, not the visuals. What could be more scary.... walking into the old nursery of a completely deserted, remote old house to see a rocking chair rocking as if someone had just been sitting there? Or seeing a woman in a distant graveyard, wearing Victorian mourning dress and then mysteriously disappearing?
The recent remake of this starring Daniel Radcliffe, while having some good elements, was not in the same class in my opinion. I don't like the use in recent years of graphic horror and over use of creepy supernatural themes.
The book was great, a classic tale. Set in the deserted house of the late Alice Drablow, a young lawyer must sort through her affairs. The house is only reached by a causeway which the tide cuts off every day. This story has every element needed. A great unfolding plot and a scary, haunting location.
I wouldn't call it horror, I wouldn't call it supernatural, just a good old-fashioned haunting.
I did avoid reading it at night though!
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