"Lisa Tuttle - Ghosts and Other Lovers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tuttle Lisa)

1994.

тАЬTurning ThirtyтАЭ: First published inThe Time Out Book of London Short Stories , ed. Maria Lexton,
Penguin 1993.

тАЬHauntsтАЭ: First published inDark Terrors 5 , ed. Stephen Jones and David Sutton, Gollancz 2000.


Introduction:Real Ghosts
IтАЩm fascinated by ghosts, and entertain all sorts of theories about what they really are. That hauntings are
caused by the uneasy dead, by spirits unable to find rest, seems to me theleast likely explanation, about
on a par with the idea that, down through the ages, people have merely imagined, rather than
experienced, the phenomena we call ghosts.
A few years ago I read a newspaper article about some experimenters in England who found that the
effect of low-frequency sound waves on human subjects was to make them feel shivery and frightened.
More than that: the sound waves caused their eyeballs to vibrate, giving the impression of a blurry
something glimpsed from the corner of the eye. The experimenters speculated that low-frequency
standing waves might be produced by wind and other natural effects in old buildings, resulting in ghostly
sightings and the notorious тАЬcold spotsтАЭ in haunted houses. Obviously, the next step (it seemed to
meтАФnot the researchers!) would be to construct a тАЬhauntedтАЭ house by using low-frequency sound
waves to prove it. Not having the funds for such a project, I decided to write a story about someone
who did. The result was тАЬHaunts.тАЭ

I donтАЩt think that discovering a physiological explanation for ghostly effects diminishes the mystery or the
wonder of ghosts. Explaining why some houses might seem to be haunted doesnтАЩt explain why people
are haunted.

ThatтАЩs what really interests me, and thatтАЩs what these stories are about: the relationship between people
and their ghosts. Ghosts can be memories or obsessions, and, as in тАЬTurning Thirty,тАЭ the single resolutely
non-supernatural horror story included here, certain types of memory can be literally devastating, as
powerful as any malign spirit. Saying that something is тАЬall in the mindтАЭ is no kind of explanation at all;
thereтАЩs no straightforward dividing line between the thing that happens and how that thing is interpreted
by the people it happens to.

тАЬHauntsтАЭ started out almost as a science-fiction story, an attempt to suggest a rational explanation for
ghostsтАФbut ghosts wonтАЩt be pinned down so easily. Block off one exit and they will oozeтАФor
explodeтАФthrough another. No matter how much is rationalized or explained away, a core of mystery
always remains.

In my teens, like the narrator of тАЬHaunts,тАЭ I hung out with a group of friends all eager to see a genuine
ghost or UFO, make contact with the other side, or somehowprove the supernatural was, or was not,
for real. We huddled around my Ouija board for hours, haunted graveyards, and drove off in pursuit of a
mysterious тАЬghost lightтАЭ in south Texas. No, we never proved anything; IтАЩve still never seen a ghost,
despite living for many years in England and Scotland, both countries with a much higher spook count
than Texas. IтАЩm no longer quite so eager to see one in real life, but I remain fascinated by ghosts in
fiction, my own as well as othersтАЩ.

How people react to the unexplained tells you a lot about them; every bit as much as their relationships
with other people. For me, the idea of a small group of people in a haunted house has always been much
more suggestive than Jane AustenтАЩs favorite formula of тАЬ3 or 4 Families in a Country Village.тАЭ My literary