Customer Reviews

The Land of Mist

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Professor Challenger, that champion of science and rationality, is an inveterate enemy of the new phenomenon of Spiritualism. However, when his beloved daughter Enid, and her beau Edward Malone become involved in Spiritualism, he realizes he must expose this humbug for what it is. However, there are more things in Heaven and Earth than are dreamed of in Professor Challenger's philosophy, and he is in for a shock!

Professor George Edward Challenger is the lesser known creation of Sherlock Holmes' creator, Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930). Unlike the cool and calculating Homes, Challenger is irascible, domineering and extremely outspoken. Also unlike Holmes, Professor Challenger never caught on and as such only five Challenger stories were ever written, this one having been written in 1926.

Unlike the other four Professor Challenger stories, I must admit to have found this one extremely disappointing. This story was not written for entertainment, but was written as a polemic, to convince the reader of the wonder (or whatever) of Spiritualism. The polemic is too heavy-handed, and the story itself is just not interesting. So, while I do consider myself a fan of A.C. Doyle and Professor Challenger, I must say that this book will only be of interest to the completist. I definitely do not recommend this book.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle lost his son, brother, and two nephews in World War I, and this led him to believe in Spiritualism. This book is less a novel than a propaganda piece for Spiritualism; it uses characters from the Professor Challenger stories, primarily the journalist Edward Malone and Enid Challenger, with a few appearances by Professor Challenger himself, and lectures the reader on the characters' conversion to Spiritualism. There are a few passages reminiscent of Doyle before his reason was affected, and an interesting although shocking suggestion in chapter two that the deaths of "ten million young men" in World War I were punishment by the "Central Intelligence" for humanity's laughing at the alleged evidence for life after death. But the bulk of the book is unreadable.

I guess it is time for someone to come to the rescue of George Edward Challenger, Ed Malone, and Lord Roxton, although those three adventurer heroes would probably be the last macho men to admit that they needed rescuing. After all, they survived Challenger's LOST WORLD in one of the greatest adventures since GULLIVER'S TRAVELS.

So now that reviewers are trashing the novella LAND OF MIST, it is time that someone offered an apologetic view.

True. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is better known for creating the Sherlock Holmes detective stories, but as good as the Holmes stories may be to aficionados, they are not the only arrows in Conan Doyle's quiver. Many readers equally appreciate the Challenger stories, particularly the temperamental ape of a zoologist himself - a crusty individualist (masterfully portrayed by Claude Raines in the disappointing 1960 version of THE LOST WORLD) who hates to have his personal privacy invaded by representatives of the press. His objections to reporters seem to be justified when he points out that they often print stories based on subjective preferences of the publishers and not on objective reality. One wonders what he would make of the Fourth Estate today with corporate entities determining what stories are printed or aired for the mass population. More than likely he would prefer alternative presses or radio talk shows like COAST TO COAST AM.

THE LOST WORLD is in the realm of science-fiction adventures as those written by the other talented Brit H. Ryder Haggard. The fact that Haggard penned more of these semi- fantasy adventures - such as SHE, KING SOLOMON'S MINES, and my favorite PEOPLE OF THE MIST -than Conan Doyle does not make Conan Doyle inferior. In THE LOST WORLD, Conan Doyle reveals that he is a superlative master of the pen, capable of creating believable characters who exhibit real human emotions when facing larger-than-life adversaries from another time. In THE LOST WORLD, arguably his best work, the three adventurers face long-thought extinct dinosaurs from the earth's distant past, the Jurassic period in pre-history.

However, Conan Doyle decided not to end the adventures of Challenger, Roxton, and Malone with their escapades on the dinosaur plateau or other realms of science-fiction. After World War I and his considerable personal losses, he decided to explore a realm populated by such masters of the horror story as Henry James, Algernon Blackwood, M. R. James, William Hope Hodgson and the granddaddy of the gothic novelists Bram Stoker. Some fans might argue for the inclusion of Mary Shelley in this list because of her classic FRANKENSTEIN, but genre purists have argued that FRANKENSTEIN was as much an early science-fiction story as it was gothic. (For an incredible science-fiction approach to FRANKENSTEIN, see Roger Corman's film FRANKENSTEIN UNBOUND).

Other readers have argued that LAND OF MIST is based on actual events and is more of a polemic for Spiritualist beliefs than a true gothic story. I cannot argue against that, particularly as Conan Doyle has included copious endnotes with his novella. I know, however, that fictional works are often reportedly based on, and inspired by, actual events. The excellent and under-rated horror film THE MOTHMAN PROPHECY is an example of this. The fact that Mothman sightings may have really existed does not detract from the enjoyment of the film or the recognition that this is a truly skillful piece of filmmaking.

I am not necessarily a believer in spiritualism (whether upper-case or lower-case S). I have, like others, sat in on séances and participated in Ouija board readings. I have not yet seen anything unequivocally convincing with any of those experiences, but this does not mean I am ruling out the validity of such experiences that other people may have had, including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I have drawn upon these experiences for my own fictional undertakings, including a gothic novel I am working on here in China. I have interviewed many people from Indonesia and am truly convinced that THEY are convinced that creatures from what we call the supernatural realm really exist. This includes ghosts.

THE LAND OF MIST is just such a ghost story, a supernatural adventure that is unlike the Sherlock Holmes stories or THE LOST WORLD. Perhaps it is hard to imagine a George Edward Challenger involved in a ghost story, but this is what Conan Doyle has chosen to do. Until the end of the story, Challenger remains just as skeptical as Holmes, or many of us, would be. Finding Lord Roxton in this story, particularly as someone who is a renown big-game hunter and war hero(Michael Rennie is a superb Roxton in the 1960 version of THE LOST WORLD), as suddenly being interested in haunted houses is a bigger stretch. However, I was glad when Lord Roxton enters the story, even though his appearance in this tale makes less of an impact on the proceedings than it does in THE LOST WORLD when he saves his colleagues from the jaws of prehistoric creatures and apes more than once. Here the Lord is just as perplexed as the others. He is as shocked as Malone when the two of them and a man of the cloth are frightened out of a haunted house by a formidable entity.

Had I written the novel, I would have placed the haunted house experience at the end of the novel instead of approximately in the middle and concentrated on the gothic elements. But this is only because the gothic elements are what interest me. A colleague said I should not include THE LAND OF MIST in a gothic literature class I am teaching this coming spring. After reading the story, I decided that I shall include it and let the graduate students decide whether or not is it a gothic work. Except for the haunted house sequence, which is perhaps too short, he does not really present a typical gothic setting. He brings his ghosts or spirits into the real world, and his decision to structure it the way he did was based on his own preferences. Perhaps we should just be appreciative that we can still find such works as this from Amazon and Borders and not prevent other readers from making up their own minds by creating such negative reviews. This freedom of choice is not available everywhere in the world. Who knows? In the future, the freedom to find and enjoy great literature may exist nowhere and we critics, after all, are often just comparing what an author or filmmaker has done with what we might have done had we the energy or opportunity to create the original work.

Believe in ghosts if you wish, or disbelieve if you wish. That is your right, just as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had the right to create this story in the first place. I would not be surprised to learn that he did not write it for the critics.