1) "What Was it?" (pdf) (html) (Google Books)
Despite being described variously as "a lion of literary New York", "a Poe in the minor mode", and "the writer who to the weird and supernatural gave a setting definitely localized in time and place",1 Fitz-James O'Brien's name seems scarcely recognised in the province of his birth. I know because I have (over the last few days) asked around and been met with nothing but blank looks. Not the most rigorous approach to research I'll grant you, but it does hint at a certain obscurity.
The facts of his short life are rather hard to discern (he himself was, apparently, a great embellisher of his own legend) but here's a brief chronology that I managed to glean from online sources.
Born in Cork (1828); moved to Castleconnell (Co. Limerick) in his teens (after the death of his father and his mother's subsequent remarriage); splashed about in the waters of the Shannon for a bit; took off up to TCD to study something or other; headed to London and blew an inheritance of £8,000 (no mean feat in the mid 19th century); was either embroiled in a scandal or suffered a broken heart; set sail for America; started writing more earnestly and became a member of the New York literati; fought in the American civil war; was wounded in a skirmish; lingered on for a while; died - aged 34. The end.
Three years prior to his untimely death he was kind enough to pen "What Was it?"2 - the tale that is to be the focus of the Dreadful Thoughts Story Club's inaugural discussion:
Though I won't say much more about it here (as this is, after all, a place for conversation, not oration), a few brief observations might help to get our juices (or fluids) flowing (*spoilers follow*).
1) According to several sources the story was pioneering in its use of invisibility. Alan Gullette has this to say:
"What Was It? A Mystery" (March, 1859) caused a minor sensation, being one of the first to deal with an invisible creature. (It predated Maupassant's "The Horla," and while it is not known to have been translated, it is still possible the French short story master heard about the earlier tale. On the other hand, it is fairly certain that Ambrose Bierce was familiar with the story when he wrote "The Damned Thing.").
While the grand-daddy of the modern invisibility narrative seems to be James Dalton's (cautionary) The Invisible Gentleman (1833), the (supposed) originality of FJoB's story appears to lie in its use of a non-human entity.
2) The grounding of the "supernatural" (if you can call it that) in the physical - the creature sleeps, wants for food, is clearly mortal etc. - makes the story feel (to me at least) far more contemporary than it actually is.
3) While the creature is clearly aggressive and hostile, its motivations are never discussed or contextualised. It simply appears, horrifies all present, and then departs (in this case, by slowly dying). In this I'm reminded somewhat of M.R. James (of whom we'll be hearing much more I'm sure). He was a great man for "demonic" entities who, far from revelling in their malevolence, seem wretched and tormented by their diabolical natures. A slightly similar feel is present in "What Was it?" - although the tragic aspects of the unseen monster are much more to the fore.
Anyway, enough of my yappin'. Over to you folks.
"What was it?" - discuss.
- Wolfe, Francis, "Fitz-James O'Brien in Ireland and England, 1828-1851″, in American Literature, Vol. 14, No. 3. (Nov., 1942), pg. 234. [back]
- Harper's. March, 1859. [back]
I thought it was going to be scary. But then it wasn’t. The banter in the garden with Dr. Hammond had me pulling the sheet up under my eyes.
The narrative took a bit of a right turn.
That the creature took on a wretched and pitiable aspect was good.
I think if the story had started in the garden or when he went to bed, it would have been much more satisfying a narrative.
He broke the number one rule of Hollywood scriptwriting. Never start a scene any earlier than the last possible second after which it wouldn’t make any sense.
February 6th, 2008 at 9:27 pmTo be clear, the story should have been about the week-long lingering death of the creature. Not all that shite about the disappeared merchant and the spiritualist hauntings.
Which, I suppose, is what made Mary Shelley and Bram Stoker so interesting.
February 6th, 2008 at 9:32 pmI had the same experience. I’d read a brief summary of it a while back and thought - “An unknown (perhaps unknowable) invisible entity that attacks at night. Sounds terrifying”.
The fact that it lets the winds out of its own sails is, I think, a feather in its cap, and (as you suggest) a satisfying turn. The way I read it is that this isn’t really a dramatic tale of ‘good’ encountering evil but rather a case of two worlds colliding. The entity seems equally anxious and distressed about the fact of the narrator’s existence as he is of its (if that makes sense).
Though this isn’t (I don’t think) a completely successful work, it is remarkable in that the human protagonists (i.e ‘us’) effectively kill the creature by imprisoning it. There’s a lovely thread of guilt running through the 2nd half, in sentences like…
February 6th, 2008 at 10:17 pmForgot about that! Some good stuff there re: the “one Something more terrible than any other thing”.
Here’s another delicious taste:
February 6th, 2008 at 10:23 pmO’Brien’s narrator mentions that the entity’s face “somewhat approached” a face in Tony Johannot’s Un Voyage ou il vous plaire.
Off with me then to see if I could find said face. Lo and behold, the whole book is up on t’interweb.
A quick flick through reveals the volume to be liberally stuffed with grotesque heads. Here’s one page:
Here’s another:
My French is rusty/non-existent so I haven’t a clue what the odd bits of text say, but the faces tell their own stories.
February 7th, 2008 at 9:54 pm*forlornly blows his club whistle to attract attention*
so i have to do a power point and paper on “what was it?” and i didnt really understand it, so if anyone could please help me out a little
May 2nd, 2008 at 6:17 pmHi Krysten,
What specifically didn’t you understand? If you pop a few questions into the comments here I’d be happy to have a go at helping you.
May 3rd, 2008 at 10:45 amI am the author of “The Woman Between the Worlds”, a science-fiction/horror novel originally published in 1994. This novel depicts monstrous invisible humanoids from a parallel dimension, who emerge in 19th-century Earth.
I was profoundly influenced by O’Brien’s “What Was It?” in writing this novel, and also influenced by O’Brien’s more obscure story “From Hand to Mouth”.
It was my intention that the invisible humanoids in my novel were the same species as O’Brien’s invisible creature in “What Was It?”, and coming from the same place. O’Brien does not say where his creature came from, but surely it is not native to Earth: if it were, then humans would encounter them more frequently.
My novel “The Woman Between the Worlds” is told in first-person by an unnamed narrator, just like “What Was It?”. I originally intended to end my novel with the last sentence of O’Brien’s story, but eventually decided against this.
June 21st, 2008 at 6:37 am