JASON HALF : writer
  • Home
  • Full-length Plays
    • The Community Play
    • Kate and Comet
    • Sundial
    • Tulip Brothers
  • Short Plays
    • Among the Oats
    • Holly and Mr. Ivy
    • Locked Room Misery
  • Screenplays
    • The Ballad of Faith Divine
    • My Advice
    • Finders
  • Fiction
  • Blog

DEATH BY SUGGESTION (2018) ed. Donald K. Hartman

5/12/2019

0 Comments

 
Picture
For crime and mystery writers at the end of the 19th century, hypnotism must have been a thoroughly tantalizing subject for strange and shocking story ideas and plotlines. The still-new quasi-science by definition featured a person in power influencing another to act or think a particular way, even potentially acting against his or her will. Could tales of unscrupulous mesmerists inciting spellbound victims to steal and kill against their conscious nature be far behind?

It turns out, hypnotism stories of vengeance, crime, and tragic outcomes became a cottage industry in the literary world of the 1880s through the 1910s. In Death by Suggestion, a new anthology from Themes & Settings in Fiction Press, editor Donald K. Hartman assembles an impressive collection of 22 tales from that era dealing with the theme.

It appears to have been a great amount of curating (mostly from magazines and digests of the day), and I'm always very happy to see such efforts to archive and present period writing that would otherwise be forgotten. Hartman's introductory description is fair: he writes that "You will find here stories that are preposterous; some that are slightly plausible; a few of them may make you shiver; and a couple may even make you laugh; but hopefully, you will find them all entertaining."

One question I had before reading was whether the assembled stories, focused on so narrow a subject and following an anticipated narrative, would feel repetitive when collected and read in a group. The answer is Yes and No; there is some welcome variety in the use of hypnotism within the plots, as well as differing tones and thematic goals. That's all to the good. Still, I chose to read only a few pieces each week, in between other books and activities, as the turn-of-the-century writing style and the often superficial characterizations were overwhelming when sampled en masse.

But let me get to the stories, of which a number proved intriguing and entertaining. Certainly there are recurring themes here, a principal one being a male hypnotist jealously working to bring about the ruin of a romantic rival (and sometimes ruining the woman in the process). The villain of Julian Hawthorne's "The Irishman's Story" is Dr. Gramery, a mesmerist with "brilliant eyes" – they nearly all have brilliant eyes – who is particularly cruel in seeking his revenge. J.E. Muddock's story "The Crime of the Rue Auber" offers another amoral antihero, where a man hypnotizes his wife to kill his mistress's husband in a kind of two-birds-with-one-stone auto-suggestion. Similarly, "The Playwright's Story" by Willard Douglas Coxey follows a scribe who uncovers an affair between his actress wife and her stage partner, and hypnotizes the man to strangle his wife onstage.

Men aren't the only people to wield deadly power here. The woman with the mesmerizing eyes and the dark, fearsome beauty often manages to kill a succession of men in these stories, either to receive life insurance money (as with "Philip Darrell's Wife" by B.L. Farjeon) or simply to destroy males like a black widow spider (see the entry from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, "John Barrington Cowles"). A variation on the latter, and one of the best stories in the collection, is Erckmann-Chatrian's atmospheric "Suggested Suicide," which is unique because the male witness watching a witch-like woman control and kill lodgers staying at an inn learns the rules of hypnotism so he can turn the spell on the caster.

The other stories that were most notable to me were those that managed to use the subject in an unexpected way. Two engrossing pieces explored the toll that hypnotic power may take on user and subject: Hugh Conway's "Paul Vargas: A Mystery" features a mesmeric man who transfers illness from a woman to himself, eventually becoming paralyzed and deathly ill as a result; and Charles Fleming Embree's "A Higher Hypnotism" finds its hypnotist paralyzed as he tries to physically control (as if through real-time telepathy) his subject.

There are two short sketches by Ambrose Bierce included here, and one is the most comical story in the group, simply called "The Hypnotist." A mischievous narrator finds creative ways to bump off those he dislikes, convincing a prison warden that he is an ostrich, who then swallows "a great quantity of indigestible articles mostly of wood and metal", and making his scheming parents believe they are warring broncos.
A few stories went even farther afield (with enjoyable results), such as "The Harmony of Horror" by Havelock Ettrick, a slight but brisk adventure involving a kidnapped concert pianist, a shadowy society, and a deadly piano chord; and "Hypnotism with a Vengeance" by Ichor, a sort of Jonah and the Whale retelling with a spellbound ship's mate remaining unconscious during his fantastic ordeal.

Death by Suggestion makes for fun reading and provides an interesting look at how popular culture was translating the exoticism and dangers of hypnotism in the late 19th century. I'm grateful to Mr. Hartman for providing me with a copy of the book in exchange for this (hopefully clear-eyed) review.

0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    BLOG

    Lots of book reviews and discussion of classic and contemporary mystery fiction. I welcome comments and continuing conversation.

    Subscribe below to receive updates!

    Subscribe

    Categories

    All
    19th Century Novels
    Andrew Garve
    Anne Morice
    Anthologies
    Anthony Boucher
    Appalachian Authors
    Bill James
    Book Review
    Catherine Dilts
    C. Daly King
    Craig Rice
    David Goodis
    E.C.R. Lorac / Carol Carnac
    Erle Stanley Gardner
    E.R. Punshon
    Freeman Wills Crofts
    French Authors
    George Bellairs
    George Milner
    Gladys Mitchell
    Golden Age Mystery
    Gregory McDonald
    Hardboiled Detectives
    Helen McCloy
    Henry Wade
    Herbert Adams
    Hugh Austin
    James Corbett
    J. Jefferson Farjeon
    John Bude
    John Rhode/Miles Burton
    Leo Bruce
    Maj Sjowall / Per Wahloo
    Margery Allingham
    Martin Edwards
    Michael Gilbert
    Michael Innes
    Mignon G. Eberhart
    Milward Kennedy
    Mitchell Mystery Reading Group
    New Fiction
    New Mystery
    Nicholas Blake
    Nicolas Freeling
    Noir
    Philip MacDonald
    Play Review
    Q. Patrick / Patrick Quentin
    Rex Stout
    Richard Hull
    Ross MacDonald
    Russian Authors
    Science Fiction
    Vernon Loder
    Vladimir Nabokov
    William L. DeAndrea
    Winifred Blazey
    Writing

    Mystery Fiction Sites
    -- all recommended ! --
    Ahsweetmysteryblog
    Beneath the Stains of Time
    Bitter Tea and Mystery
    Catherine Dilts - author
    Countdown John's Christie Journal
    Classic Mysteries
    Clothes in Books
    ​A Crime is Afoot
    Crossexaminingcrime
    Gladys Mitchell Tribute
    Grandest Game in the World
    In Search of the Classic Mystery Novel
    The Invisible Event
    Martin Edwards' Crime Writing Blog
    Mysteries Ahoy!
    Noirish
    The Passing Tramp
    Past Offences
    Pretty Sinister Books
    Tipping My Fedora
    Witness to the Crime
    

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    November 2015
    October 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015

    RSS Feed

Unless otherwise stated, all text content on this site is
​copyright Jason Half, 2023.