His quest leads him eventually to the old lady of Kittiscar Hall, where he discovers something far more terrible at work than he could ever have imagined. Of course, part of that was the repetition. There's only so many times Monmouth can talk about how some landscape of England impressed him just as much as any of the farflung locations he spent his life visiting, or how he found England different, but comfortably so, from what he was used to, or how he found part of England vaguely familiar... so on and so forth. The conclusion of The Mist in the Mirror, which I will not spoil, is a bit of a letdown, and even Hill seems to know it. When all is revealed, we are told that Monmouth feels a “depressed sense of anti-climax”, which is exactly what the reader feels. Not cheated, but disappointed. Such carefully controlled mounting tension creates a feeling of an earlier time, perhaps the 19th century, when in most classic novels of English literature, fear was merely a suggestion in the mind. And it continues:

In an effort to learn more about Vane’s early life, and his own, Sir James sets off for the remote Kittiscar Hall on a cold and rainy winter night. The manuscript tells the story of Sir James Monmouth. Monmouth has lived abroad all of his adult life, and he has little recollection of his childhood or his parents. When his guardian passes away, swept by the passion of youth, Monmouth travels in the footsteps of his hero, one Conrad Vane. His journeys take him to the Far East, to Africa. The name Conrad may or may not be an allusion to Joseph Conrad, but the story of Monmouth’s return to England in his middle years reads like the inverse of Heart of Darkness. In the most exotic locations, Monmouth was fine; it is in England where he suffers a sort of existential malaise.moving in front of my eyes all the time - the mist is impossible to grasp. This seems to reflect the shifting and unstable nature of the place and ultimately of the effect Jennet Humfrye's ghost has on men's minds. I felt confused, teased by it - Kipps' confusion is demonstrated in his use of two verbs here, as if he cannot decide which word to use. There’s nothing like a goodold-fashioned ghost story, and the masterful Hill authentically channels such giants of the Gothic genre asPoe and Doyle in this eerily atmospheric yarn of restless spirits, both temporal and corporeal.” The tale begins, typically, with a chat about ghosts in a private club where gentlemen don’t take the matter of phantasms too seriously. Their collective attempt to pass the time telling ghost stories fails, and one of the company finally declares: “We had better leave the telling of them to the professionals.”

All is impression, and hints. What is the mysterious mirror? Does it show the future, or or something else? Susan Hill’s superbly crafted work enthralls the reader with its atmosphere and description. She is a master of the understated, using spare language when that is all that is needed: Monmouth may be a British citizen, but a woman he meets on the train considers him “alone in a strange country”, takes pity on him, and invites him to spend Christmas with her husband and family. Monmouth too admits, “I was, I confess, still out of place in London and isolated too, without a home, family or friends… I needed a purpose, and exploration into the life of Vane was giving me one, for the time being.”Yet, as Thomas Ligotti points out in The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, all life is vain/Vane, and Monmouth struggles with the vanity of his existence. All the while, Monmouth is haunted by images of a young boy following him around as well as crying in the night. He also comes across a strange mirror in a former abode of Vane's that instantly mists up when he tries to see into it. What unsettles Monmouth the most is when his own family name comes up in the research into Vane's past. It seems that his ancestors may have been linked in some way to Vane and that his curious urge to investigate Vane may have been preordained. yellow filthy fog of London; - the comparison between the dense fog that Kipps knows from London and this more delicate mysterious thing reminds us of our narrator's isolation. He is far away from home and even the 'yellow filthy fog' he knows well seems safe in comparison with the sea mist. I settled into my chair, turning off all the lights save for one shaded lamp beside me. I suppose that I intended to read for an hour at most, expecting drowsiness to overtake me again, but I became so engrossed in the story that unfolded before me that I rapidly forgot all thought of the time, or my present surroundings.” And as he learns more about his hero’s past, he discovers that they are only the beginning, for Kittiscar Hall is hiding terrible secret that will bind their lives together in ways he could never have imagined.

No one," he said, "wants to revive the memory or disturb the shade of Conrad Vane. No one will speak to you of him--no one who could possibly be of use to you. No one who knows. For the last twenty years Sir James Monmouth has journeyed all over the globe in the footsteps of his hero, the great pioneering traveler Conrad Vane. And for most of the book that's what happened to this reader. I settled down in bed with just the low glow of the bedside lamp and intended to just read until I got sleepy. And I finished the story before that ever happened... I settled into my chair, turning off all the lights save for one shaded lamp beside me. I suppose that I intended to read for an hour at most, expecting drowsiness to overtake me again, but I became so engrossed in the story that unfolded before me that I rapidly forgot all thought of the time, or my present surroundings.

Browse articles by tag

I turned away and began to walk softly between the bookcases, looking in awe to left and right, at the evidence of so much knowledge, so much learning, far beyond the level of school-age boys... It was as I approached the last few bays that I heard what at first I took to be the soft closing of the door at the far end of the room, but which went on, even and regular, like the breathing of someone asleep, a sighing that seemed to come out of the air above my head, as though the whole, great room were somehow a living thing, exhaling around me. I glanced up at the gallery. Someone was there, I was certain of it. The wood creaked. A footfall. I was as far from my way of escape as I could have been, trapped alone in this empty place with – whom? What?” I stepped inside, and stood, letting my eyes grow accustomed to the change of light. I found myself in a room that stretched far ahead of me into the gloom. But there was enough of the soft, snow-reflected light coming in through the tall windows for me to have a view of a gallery, that ran the whole way around, rising towards the vaulted and elaborately carved ceiling. I felt no fear, but rather a sense of awe, as if I had entered some church or chapel. I really enjoy Susan Hill's ghost stories, however, I did not enjoy this one. It is an extremely frustrating story because hardly any information is revealed, and it seems like the story is one big series of delays until the climax. The book is about James Monmouth, a man in his mid thirties who has spent all of his life overseas travelling after spending his boyhood in Africa. His travelling was inspired by his boyhood hero, Conrad Vane, in whose footsteps he was following. Now Monmouth, having no recollection of his parents or early years, has returned to England to find his roots. So far so good.