Platypus Wrote:
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> Dale Nelson Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Agreed, but I don't remember reading that he
> > engaged in such horseplay, although it is
> getting
> > towards 40 years since I read Michael Cox's
> > biography of MRJ. I just wondered where that
> > datum was from. It's believable, but I don't
> > remember it.
>
> This article mentions horseplay, and cites to p.
> 55 of Cox's biography:
> [
unbound.com]
> s/asexual-homosexual-bisexual-or-straight-the-conf
> using-world-of-m-r-james
>
> I have not read Cox's biography, but I have read
> M.R. James stories, and can compare some of the
> assertions in this article to the actual text.
> For instance, the article says, in the very first
> paragraph, that "A Warning to the Curious" and
> "The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance"
> contain "coded" homosexual rape sequences. For
> those who don't read code, the word "coded" in
> this context, actually means "no such thing
> happened".
Either you're trusted with the secret handshake, or you are not...
>
> In "A Warning to the Curious", Paxton is on his
> hands and knees digging a tunnel in a barrow, when
> he feels a sensation which he takes to be dirt
> falling on his back. He ignores the sensation,
> and grabs his prize, an ancient silver crown, and
> hears something like a groan of dismay behind him.
> We are led to understand that what Paxton took
> for falling dirt, was in fact the feeble
> half-skeletal claw of the ghost of William Ager,
> tasked with defending the crown, who is trying to
> pull Paxton away from the crown or otherwise
> attack him, but who is too feeble (physically at
> least) to exert much force upon him. How one
> could leap from this to an inference of gay rape
> is a mystery.
>
> "The Story of an Disappearance and Appearance" is
> one of MR James' more unresolved stories, but we
> are presumably meant to theorize that Uncle H has
> been murdered for his money by a pair of traveling
> Punch & Judy performers. In the climax, the
> vengeful ghost of Uncle H appears in the
> performer's booth, grabs one of the performers,
> and lifts him toward the prop noose. The booth
> then falls over, and one of the performers flees.
> The two performers are then found dead, one in the
> booth, and the other some distance away, where the
> ghost of Uncle H evidently pursued him. I guess
> the article-writer's inference here is that ghost
> must have snuck up on the performer from behind,
> and that any rearward approach necessarily implies
> gay rape.
Well...
What
else could it be?....
;^)
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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