THE DEEP ONES: "Cold Flame" by Joan Aiken

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THE DEEP ONES: "Cold Flame" by Joan Aiken

2AndreasJ
Set 21, 2022, 7:11 am

While not our usual fare, I thought this was good fun, and the posthumous aspect should qualify it as weird enough.

3paradoxosalpha
Set 23, 2022, 4:15 pm

The sentence that got me to LOL was this one with its own paragraph:

I thought about that.

4papijoe
Set 25, 2022, 5:17 pm

I found the spare dialog-driven prose a refreshing change of pace.
Certainly weird enough for me, and the narrator’s deadpan causal response to being contacted from beyond the grave actually enhanced the weirdness.
And being pursued into the next life by Mrs O’Shea well exceeded the horror requirement.

5papijoe
Set 25, 2022, 5:19 pm

>3 paradoxosalpha: Thanks! I missed this and it was well worth going back for!

6housefulofpaper
Set 25, 2022, 7:07 pm

The previous Aiken story we looked at, "Reading in Bed", is missing from the Google docs listing of all discussions (I wanted to check what I wrote about that story, so as to avoid repeating myself).

Perhaps not surprisingly, we don't get many comedies selected for a Deep Ones Discussion. I thought it was good fun too, with enough psychological acuity in the characters of Mrs O'Shea and her son, and in their relationship, to give the tale some depth and a touch of real menace.

7RandyStafford
Set 26, 2022, 11:31 pm

An enjoyable story. I liked the enigma of Mrs. O'Shea. Is she some sort of psychic vampire or just a really narcistic woman with magical powers?

And then there's the question of Patrick's poetry. Is it any good? Is it even original? Are we buying the story that mom showing up in the afterlife distracted him?

In some ways, as Ellis hints at, mother and son share a lot of traits. Perhaps Patrick's desire to get his poetry, however good, published is just a manifestation of his own narcissism.

Kind of wished we would have seen what Chapedelaine had in mind for the second portrait.

8semdetenebre
Set 27, 2022, 11:53 am

>6 housefulofpaper:

The Google docs list has been updated and "Reading in Bed" is now in its proper spot in the Spring 2022 section.