I was really disappointed by this. From early on I was put off but I kept reading because I was interested in the setting and because other reviews suggested that the book was genuinely scary at some point, had an interesting ending, and there were deeper things going on. I didn't really find the story creepy, the ending was incredibly dumb, and despite the occasional mention of something that would be interesting to go deeper on (eg the ghost was killed in a slave rebellion) the book absolutely refuses to even gesture at any significance.

The characters are irritating, stupid and shallow. To the extent their personalities exist, they're simply reflective of class, gender and race prejudices with no details and no hint of complication. Apart from the caretaker character Rayburn - who's depicted as a racist stereotype - the other 4 characters are all from the Guyanese elite. The 2 men are smart, brave and strong, the 2 women are stupid, weak and whiny. It's unpleasant to read.

Despite being a relatively short book, it feels extremely padded. Pages are filled with basically the same sort of thing happening over and over, with no new description, no interest. From early on escalation is threatened soon the ghost will take them away!! but for a couple of weeks they just sort of get away with ignoring it. The worst thing is that they don't do anything! Everything in the book happens to them and despite instructions on laying the ghost to rest in the face of otherwise certain death they just do nothing. They're unbearably passive despite the narrator grunting on about how scary it is but also how smart and strong he is. There's even one moment where the narrator admits the reader is probably thinking "why didn't you go out and try and put the ghost to rest" and just sort of waves it off as them being scared. But otherwise you're all thinking you're going to die??? It's unbearably dumb.

And then in the end, suddenly resolution is thrust upon them in a way which involves very minimal contribution from themselves (and the logic of the ghost by the end of the book is basically completely different from at the start). And it involves one of the stupidest ghost origin stories I've ever heard - this guy invoked dark evil forces to invent a better flute. Seriously. On this plantation he was working as a flute inventor as well as plantation owner. His wife was mad at him. He was frustrated. So he invoked demons to make a better flute. It worked! Except then he was in the clutches of demons It was funny but just made the whole thing feel even dumber retrospectively.

The book is full of misogyny and to a lesser extent racism, but the racism is even more shocking (one character just casually uses the n word). Again, I only carried on reading because I was led to believe there was something deeper here. There really isn't. The setting is unusual but the creepiness potential is squandered in a daft story that doesn't develop any tension and ends stupidly. Bad book. ( )

Another one that hits the high notes of my own shrieks of delight, My Bones and My Flute follows the story of the Nevinson family in 1930s British Guyana. Along with the chronicler of this story, Milton Woodsley, one by one the Nevinsons fall victim to an old curse that threatens to lead them to their doom. The first symptom they notice is eerie flute music that no one else can hear, but this is only a prelude to the horrors of what's coming next.

I've posted about this book here at my reading journal, but I'll just say this:

Like most of the books I read, My Bones and My Flute can be read strictly for its surface value -- in this case, a creepy, mysterious ghost story where the tension ratchets over the course of the book -- or for people like me who want to dive deeper, there's certainly plenty of food for thought lurking beneath: race, the immense power of the jungle landscape, Guyana's troubled slave past, and much, much more. If you decide to check out this book, do not under any circumstances read the introduction, since it pretty much reveals everything and would kill the suspense and the tension.

No matter how you choose to read it, My Bones and My Flute is a fine ghost story that had me flipping pages until I'd finished, and it is so very well done that without hesitating for a second, I immediately picked up another of Mittelholzer's Caribbean novels. My only issues: there are some pretty overwrought, overwritten sections in this book that are almost laughable and the ending sort of left me with a few more questions, but on the whole, it is one that serious readers of older supernatural stories will not want to miss. Quite frankly, I feel like I hit paydirt when I discovered this novel, and I can't wait to read the next one, Shadows Move Among Them. If you're into rare and obscure finds, this one should most definitely be a part of your library. ( )

"The air began to thump", 16 October 2015

This review is from: My Bones and My Flute: A Ghost Story in the Old-Fashioned Manner (Caribbean Modern Classics) (Paperback)
This review is from: My Bones and My Flute: A Ghost Story in the Old-Fashioned Manner (Caribbean Modern Classics) (Paperback)
When Milton Woodsley, a young artist and enthusiast for old Guyana, is invited on a trip by businessman friend Mr Nevinson, he thinks it's to do a commissioned painting. But as they travel into the Berbice Jungle, to the Nevinson's sawmill - accompanied by the latter's cynical wife, and lovely 19 yr old daughter - he starts to learn the creepy truth.
Nevinson has come into possession of an ancient manuscript. Written in Dutch by a Berbice plantation owner at the time of the 1763 slave uprising, it tells of the massacre of his wife and children, and swears to curse all those who touch the parchment until his bones and flute are found and interred with Christian rites. Already Nevinson is hearing a ghostly flute which no one else can.
And in the forest, a lot more is about to happen:

"The air was heavy with water-vapour - and the scent of vegetation and river water; a musty, sweetish rankness that at one instant would seem very refreshing and make you want to breathe deeply, then would suddenly awaken distrust, for there would seem to enter it an earthy dankness as of centuries of rotting leaves and the bones of long-buried corpses."

I moderately enjoyed this book; but whereas I would expect the fear to rise to a crescendo in the last chapter, I found myself getting a little bored. ( )