It’s traditional to read a scary book on Christmas Eve
and I would like to say for the purposes of the opening sentence of this review,
that, on the 24th December I snuggled up in front of my Christmas
tree and read the opening line of Susan Hill’s The Woman in Black: “It was nine-thirty on Christmas Eve”.
However, I didn’t want to tempt the ghosts of Christmas
past this year.
There is something about this story, I feel, that I will
always find uncomfortable. So much so I won’t dedicate too much time describing
the figure that haunts the unfortunate Arthur Kipps in the lonely house that
sits among the marshes.
I had watched the 2012
film before seeing the play at the West End, and after seeing the play I slept
all night with the bedside lamp on. So when I came to the book I was
sufficiently freaked out enough to decide I would not read it at home on my
own. When I did start reading, however, I noticed a theme that
had been brushed over in the film and was developed in the play. This was the
theme, most obvious given the title, of women.
The story of the woman in black, Kipps explains, is “not
particularly unfamiliar”. A woman, unmarried, gives birth to a baby to the
shame of her family and she is later pressurised to give him up for adoption.
The book was published in 1983 and is described as a traditional English ghost
story - quite possibly set in the Edwardian period, with flashbacks to the
Victorian era. Sadly, stories of forced adoption span right across these time
spans. In Victorian England unmarried mothers were forced to give up their
children to foundling hospitals, while Hill was writing her horror novella in
the wake of the adoptions of the 50s, 60s, and 70s, as orchestrated by the
Catholic Church.
Once the theme of women and motherhood is established,
this frighteningly little tale takes on a new form. Arthur Kipps reads by
candlelight, alone in the creaky Eel Marsh House, Walter Scott’s The Heart of Midlothian, a classic novel
that deals with infanticide and the pressures the state place on young females.
The ghost tales of Crythin Gifford are dismissed as “women’s tales” and the gender of Arthur Kipps canine companion takes on a little more significance.
It seems just, almost, that the people who suffer under
the vengeance of the fearful phantom are Kipps and Jerome, both men who practise
the law - the same framework which takes away the moral rights of a young
mother.
While this feminist undercurrent helped to distract me
from some disturbing passages, it didn’t mean I decided against reading this
book in the company of others at all times, in clear view of what was behind me,
or that I spent more than 5 seconds looking at the front cover. I would say if you
are looking for a true horror story look no further than this one.
