I believe that everyone who sets about writing in earnest does his work, as a friend of mine phrased it, on something - tea, or coffee, or tobacco.1
The weary words of the unfortunate Rev. Mr Jennings - a character doomed by the tragic flaw of loving tea much too "extravagantly". For my own purposes tonight I turn (as always) to reliable ol' red wine - a substance not generally noted for whipping one's nerves up into states of high agitation. I urge club members to follow this lead.
Those who persist in slurping down mugs of hot 'tay' (God help them) do so at their own risk.
Should you require an alternative stimulant (to get the synapses fizzing) then please feel free to sample some of the delights contained on either of the Dreadful Thoughts mix/muxtapes:
1) "O, Whistle and I'll Come to You - Eerie Musicks for Dreadful Thoughts"
2) "Dreadful Thoughts Two …Dread by Dawn"
Scrub the face, mutter a prayer or two, tuck the children in and let's get cracking.
- "Green Tea" in The Wordsworth Collection of Irish Ghost Stories (Wordsworth, 2005), pg. 24. [back]
Hello. Hello.
Despite what I said above I’m steering clear of the wine tonight. I have 2 disgusting mouth ulcers infesting my gob and I’m gulping pain killers instead. I expect to see malevolent monkeys ‘ere long.
Hope you’re all well.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:05 pmA bottle of Great Divide Brewing Company’s “Hercules” double IPA, purchased at the Bull & Castle in Dublin over the weekend. It’s too extravagant an indulgence altogether, but I’m homesick for beers like this.
I shall cleanse the palate with a cup of tonight’s star beverage, I assure you, tempting fate and punching out free radicals, or whatever one does to free radicals, with feverish abandon. Come ye, simian apparition! Fling wildly your faecal ectoplasm and let’s get this potty started! Hit me with your best shot!
May 19th, 2008 at 9:09 pmWelcome, niall.
That Hercules stuff is like “No Hops Mercy!” I recall. ‘Twill blow your palate off.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:14 pmAnyway, let’s boogie. Rev. Jennings was, the story is keen to tell us, kindly and shy. The frequent repetition of this ether paints him as an innocent and pious victim, or somebody deeply repressed and conflicted who somehow allows this “thing” to come into his life.
There’s an ambiguity there. What think you?
May 19th, 2008 at 9:18 pmI’m afraid I’m a dreadful Dreadful Thinker tonight: I read this in college and even have an essay on it somewhere. So I should be able to say lots about it.
Sadly, I’m jet lagged and recovering from a stomach bug, so instead of dazzling you with my research, I’ve just had a quick read of the story, most of which I’d forgotten, and will be sitting by listening to the more learned comments.
It’s a poignant take on schizophrenia though, isn’t it? Relevant to the recent tragedy in Wexford maybe.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:19 pmWhoopsie, I was premature.
I saw on QI last night, Fústar, that pineapple sorts out mouth ulcers, some enzyme or other. Might be worth a try.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:19 pmSo, where to begin? Fuckin’ masterful, so it is. I suppose JS was a fan of the Poe.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:21 pmHi Jo. These very nervous/physical weaknesses may actually serve you well when it comes to a discussion of “Green Tea”! Use them to your advantage.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:21 pmI actually consumed quite a lot of green tea over the weekend, but sadly have not yet seen a sinister simian. Clearly I am doing something wrong.
Also, my brain decided for me that for this reading the part of Mr. Jennings was to be played by Edward Woodward. Dr. Hesselius was Herbert Lom. Patrick Magee voiced the monkey. Maybe I should send my brain back in time to get a job at Amicus.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:22 pmIs it the tea or the paganism that does it, so you think?
The repression has to be a big part of it.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:22 pmI’ve tried fucking everything…and am still plagued by them. Will happily eat a pineapple every 5 minutes if it gives me some relief.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:23 pmHomoeopathy too…
May 19th, 2008 at 9:24 pmI’m frustrated about not being able to have my essay - but I think it’s in a cupboard behind a wardrobe in the room where the baby’s asleep, so I’ll jsut have to deal with that!
I remember reading a lot about popular demon visions, the beast that hunches on the chests of maidens in their sleep was one illustration that stayed with me - and I’ve seen it described on programmes about night terror sufferers too. Scary. We can’t really say what’s psychological and what’s real, can we?
I think the doctor was remiss. He should have stayed!
May 19th, 2008 at 9:27 pmGood scary monkey image by the way.
I found the monkey pretty scary when I read it first.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:29 pmA good question. “Green Tea” is, with the possible exception of “The Willows”, the ‘densest’ tale we’ve tackled thus far. Where’s the “way in”?
There’s the “addiction” to research on paganism (as Jo mentions) on the one hand, and the nervous/spiritual failings that Hesselius describes on the other.
Let’s start with Jennings. He’s constantly described as looking shamed and agitated. Does that, I wonder, indicate anything about his character previous to the monkey’s appearance?
May 19th, 2008 at 9:31 pmGreen tea’s so specific, one can’t help but equate it to paganism, the Orient, the Other and all. Black tea is as English as it comes, even if it’s from the same place. I reckon the repeated references to the parson’s reputed parochialism underscores the point that he dabbled with ideas and cultures Best Left Alone.
It’s hard to deny that he put that monkey on his own back, as they say, but I rather like that JS goes beyond mere religious moralisation to explain it in scientific, Dupin-esque terms, and like that there’s a touch of protest to Hesselius’ closing words even more.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:33 pmCount yourself lucky, Jason. Do you really want a creature of pure malevolence to haunt your every waking hour? Granted it would give you a certain Woodward/Amicus-esque buzz but it would, surely, soon wear off.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:34 pmHis fear of the pagan stuff certainly suggests an openness to the darker side of himself.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:34 pmI find the take on Green Tea funny as it’s such a healthfood now. Helps prevent cancer, burn fat etc but may make you see malevolent monkeys.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:37 pmYeah, the doctor probably should have stayed, and maybe not bragged in his conclusion about how he could’ve cured the poor vicar if he hadn’t gone and killed himself.
The beast that hunches on the chests of maidens, that’s an incubus, right? I’m afraid I’m not as up on my demon visions as I once was.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:37 pmThat’s it. Having trouble thinking of words at the moment.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:38 pm…and the appearance of a demon monkey, dragging him inexorably to hell, would be his only option to dispel the cognitive dissonance of a parson whose interests in the occult extend beyond mere academic curiosity. The conscience must be appeased, and he’d have been better off Catholic.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:41 pm“Night Terrors” or “Bedroom invaders” are undoubtedly terrifying but, in a way, this monkey is even scarier. He first appears at Twilight - a liminal time - neither day nor night and seems to struggle to come into being.
There’s something about his initial shapelessness and the prosaic setting of his initial appearance (an omnibus) that adds considerably to the freakiness.
The “night hag” figure that crouches on one’s chest seems to be an aggressive invader with a will of its own. The monkey in “Green Tea”, however, strikes me as something that Jennings helped cross over into this world. It seems bound to him in an intimate way.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:41 pmMy thoughts exactly. It’s definitely more subtle than, say, Sax Rohmer, but there’s a sense of Oriental menace afoot
May 19th, 2008 at 9:42 pmJo - we had a medicine that did just that in the US a few years ago; it was called Phentermine. Well, it was a weight-loss solution, not a cancer drug.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:43 pmThe connection is never really explored. If Jennings does help it cross over, where does it come from, in what way does it belong to him. The doctor fails to address any of this, really.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:44 pmYes, absolutely, and you see it work so well in subsequent texts - Sauron in The Lord of the Rings, Frank in Hellraiser, even Crowley’s Enochian Cyrano.
Of course, it just gets stronger and more malevolent as time passes.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:49 pmThe doctor also fails to explain his rather amazing string of deductions about Jennings’ habits and nature when he first meets him, which would impress even Sherlock Holmes. Possibly even Mycroft.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:49 pmI’m sure that’s what Jennings thinks, but I don’t know if LeFanu is trying to make this (rather dull) point.
Hesselius describes “pagan” beliefs as “A wide and very interesting field.”
To which Jennings replies -
This is a key exchange I reckon. Does Jennings mean it’s too diabolic for the ‘pure’ Christian mind, or is this (instead) an indication of the deficiencies of just that mind?
In other words - does the study of paganism allow an intruder in, or permit dangerously repressed anxieties to come out?
May 19th, 2008 at 9:50 pmAnd of course, Voldemort, Niall.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:50 pmI eould go with the latter - the Christian mind seems an unstable and suggestible one - fragile and open to what he sees as evil.
It’s interesting that the ulitmate evil the monkey encourages is suicide rather than murder.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:52 pmI suspect Jennings might say the former, Dr. Hesselius the latter.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:53 pmWhat isn’t?! Fu Manchu’s giant but inherently sinister and merciless Oriental brain concealed behind a face of pure malevolence. Rohmer took notions of the “yellow peril” and cooked them up beyond boiling point!
May 19th, 2008 at 9:54 pmI’d say the doctor can’t offer much more than the pseudoscientific quasi-claptrap that is his apparent stock and trade. Far be it from me to criticise the man, what with his successful campaigns against 57 varieties of mania, but he’s as willfully blind to half the story as the reviled materialist who treated Jennings first, Doctor Harley.
May 19th, 2008 at 9:55 pmSeriously. Fu’s so exaggerated that he’s barely even human. But at least he’s not quite the most ridiculous embodiment of the yellow peril. That honor will always go to The Claw
May 19th, 2008 at 9:58 pmThis is pretty interesting, especially because Jennings’ niece was with him at just that moment. You’re expecting to hear Jennings confess that the voice was telling him to shove her off the cliff, but no - it only wants him to destroy himself.
Isn’t there a sense of wretchedness and self-loathing about Jennings throughout?
May 19th, 2008 at 9:59 pmAnd I’d say you’re dead right.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:01 pmBe not hippish, Fustar; I conjecture on Jennings’ behalf, and I’m sure we’ll reach JS in due time.
Well, how materialist are we feeling today, and does it matter? Deus ex Hesselius would likely contend that it’s neither.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:01 pmHoly shit! Game, set and match.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:02 pmFunny that you mention this and the episode with his niece. I interpreted the self-harm story as a slight distortion of the truth, because copping to more outwardly destructive, even sinister urges would spell ruination in this world as well as the next.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:06 pmAbsolutely. The conclusion is a desperate attempt to absolve himself of blame.
What a smug bastard! He even goes so far as to suggest that Jennings didn’t want to be cured (i.e. saved):
May 19th, 2008 at 10:07 pmYeah, the Claw makes Egg Fu look Like Paul Chadwick’s Concrete.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:08 pmFustar, thanks for pointing that out - blaming the victim is about as low as one can get.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:09 pmIt always comes back to Egg Fu, doesn’t it?
May 19th, 2008 at 10:10 pmHe’s the progeny of a yellow chicken come home to roost.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:11 pmA very large yellow chicken.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:12 pmWe’re wandering a bit. But let’s not forget the likes of this…
Throwing that slice of unpleasantness out there. Now back to Green Tay.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:14 pmHe’s wondering “Oh why am I so massive?” and looking down at all the little chickens; he thinks he’s in an aeroplane because all the other chickens are so small.
Christ, I’d hate to see that during a green tea binge.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:15 pmOh my god! That’s awful!
May 19th, 2008 at 10:16 pmI think you’ve inspired me to drink gallons of the stuff as soon as I get home, though. One man’s poison…
May 19th, 2008 at 10:19 pmWould anyone hazard an opinion - is the monkey external or internal? What about today’s more understood personality disorder illnesses. Those night terror stories. Your own interest in Dreadful Tales.
What does ‘real’ mean to you?
May 19th, 2008 at 10:19 pmThe only foul effect of drinking green tea I’ve ever had is the slightly sea weedy aftertaste.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:20 pmWhat did you all make of the monkey’s changing attitudes? I found this aspect one of the most unsettling and interesting aspects of the tale.
When it first follows him home it is “jaded and sulky”. That night it stands on a table looking “dazed and languid”. Throughout the first year it “looked sullen and sick” but “this character of intense malice and vigilance was always underlying that surly languor.”
Then there’s the manner of its disappearance:
May 19th, 2008 at 10:21 pmOkay, one-upmanship complete, for now.
Castaneda wrote about a spirit, death IIRC, always walking behind your shoulder. Significantly, he wrote this after sampling the Yaqui party favors. Huxley touched upon similar themes. I believe they both accepted that there’s an extrasensory world that is no less real for requiring some alternate medium, be it magnetic tape, cacti or PG Tips, to make them perceptible.
Personally, I’m inclined to agree with them.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:22 pmFústar, hell is understaffed, and its employees necessarily get a wide purview. Cheeta was probably setting up franchises, and if his manner doesn’t suggest that of a civil servant, then I don’t know what to tell ye.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:25 pmSo perhaps the mentally ill are just more tapped in to that world, niall?
I don’t know what to make of the monkey’s escalating rage. It seems that it’s continued presence pushes Jennings farther and farther into despair, depression, terror, etc. And at the same time it grows stronger, angrier, more abuive.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:29 pmThe question, Jo, as you suggest is “What does ‘real’ mean to you?”
In attempting answers at that we could be here for a lifetime, but in the context of the story I’d probably side with Jennings rather than the doctor.
Let me qualify that. I don’t think Jennings’ dabbling in pagan research calls the monkey forth, but (perhaps) shifts him mentally into contact with another reality. This reality is neither “good” nor “evil” but sort of manifests itself according to his own expectations.
He opens this door expecting horrors to come through and that is what happens. This is where his “Christian” mind lets him down. Others have opened that door and achieved transcendence etc.
Again we come back to Jennings’ self-loathing and (unconscious) wish to harm/destroy himself.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:33 pmSo, why stop short of yer man’s simple (!), inadvertent summoning of a demon monkey?
You seem to favor the latter answer to the question you posed - dangerously repressed anxieties coming out. Is the literal option simply too fantastic? A conversational dead end?
May 19th, 2008 at 10:39 pmYes, that sounds convincing
May 19th, 2008 at 10:40 pmI think I’d have to go with internal, although the story (which is pretty masterful, as Niall said) is ambiguous enough to support other interpretations. And the lack of definite information about Jennings’ background to explain it either way is a big part of its unsettling quality.
Ambiguity in horror is a tricky thing. James nearly always pulled it off, while Lovecraft’s attempts occasionally read like things that weren’t completely thought through (the lack of any characterization can be a hindrance here). I’d say Le Fanu succeeds by giving us enough hints that something may not be entirely right about Jennings (the self-loathing and discomfort) which could be manifesting itself in demonic visions brought on by the combination or green tea and research into pagan religious beliefs. The accounts of the monkey’s visitations are presented very vividly, but then we are getting them from a none-too-reliable narrator who in turn got them from a none-too-reliable source. That’s a lot of obfuscating.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:40 pmI’ve mentioned it before but the best thing I’ve ever read on such notions of “reality” is Daemonic Reality by Patrick Harpur. It’s a total head-fuck - in the best possible sense.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:40 pmI must away, gents, the jet lagged baby has been up and bouncing on his Dad for a while now. I hope you keep going, looking forward to more reading tomorrow.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:42 pm…and it apes {ho ho} the way we read spritual writings, be they esoteric texts from farflung locales and times or more canonical scriptures, quite nicely.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:42 pmGood night, Jo. I sound like a Scotsman when I say that aloud.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:44 pmI suppose I could only answer with a meek “perhaps”, but I’ll say that I’ve experienced a few revelations in moments of passing duress in the past, so I should think there’s got to be something to the suggestion, sometimes.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:47 pmJesus, I never expected to jump from here to there, but I’m reminded of the Stendhal Syndrome, both italicised and not.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:48 pmWell, the literal interpretation is both a conversational dead end and indicative of a reactionary “there are some things man is not meant to know” message. It’s possible that LeFanu intended this as a cautionary tale but I think it’s a lot more subtle that that.
I’m not suggesting a wholly (repressed) psychological explanation for that would steer unsatisfactorily close to “It was all in his mind”!
I guess my feeling is that Jennings had the possibility to gain a kind of enlightenment or “expansion” through his study but couldn’t shake the “house of cards” that was his own carefully constructed “niceness” (if you see what I mean).
He was vulnerable to this “demon” because of his lack of a sense of self perhaps?
May 19th, 2008 at 10:50 pmNight, Jo. Thanks for hangin’ on as long as you did. We’ll be here for a while yet.
May 19th, 2008 at 10:53 pmI do, and we don’t know what he may have balked at doing, nor do we know what the monkey may have insisted he do to attain that enlightenment. His failure to do the necessaries, whatever they were, would have frustrated both him and the dubious monkey. Or, the monkey may have been a sympathetic reflection of his professionally stifled urges - a la the dualism found in Romero’s Monkey Shines. He is, after all, a very right reverend such and such. Regardless, I’m not enamored of the prospect of a literal demon-monkey either, as much as I like saying “literal demon-monkey”.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:03 pmVery true. And there’s a third level - as the account that reaches us is mediated through a former student of the good Doctor’s. Jennings >> Hesselius >> Our Editor.
Going back to shaky notions of self, the monkey clearly seems to threaten a destruction of the Ego. Jennings lives a scholarly life and his tormentor tries to induce in him a listlessness and torpor.
Not only a physical death, then, but an intellectual one.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:06 pmNicely spotted. In the present age, Jennings would have been found with Eastenders on the telly.
Also,
Translating a polyglot text with as many protestations and disclaimers as can be found at the end of the letter!
May 19th, 2008 at 11:09 pmHa! Or, better yet, Fair City. I can think of few quotes that sum up its stupefying and depressing effects more that the above (and below):
Actually, I’ve cracked it. The “monkey” is but a 19th century manifestation of QVC.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:13 pmA shopping addiction. We’re back to the monkey on the back, then.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:15 pmPerhaps we should consider some of JS’ writerly conventions, now? We’ve touched upon them already, but I think a stock-taking would be profitable. The recursive frames and allusions to translation strike me as sly commentary about our means of preserving - and transmitting - knowledge, sacred or otherwise.
I keep returning to this sentence:
That had to have been written in German before our humble obedient translated it.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:21 pmA quick search of QVC using the term “monkey” reveals the following horror..
We’re assured and comforted that..
I don’t want a hug from the real thing, the unreal thing, or that completely freaky stuffed monstrosity!
May 19th, 2008 at 11:22 pmGott im Himmel. I’m sorry, monkey, whatever it was, I didn’t mean it! Stay away!
May 19th, 2008 at 11:23 pmAnyway, Fústar, I’d be remiss not to respond to your conflation of satanic simians and crass commercialism with this old gem, which has haunted my dreams for almost eight years.
Remember that one, Jason?
May 19th, 2008 at 11:26 pmInteresting point. Jennings’ convictions about the nature of his condition seem to be based on a mashing together of Swedenborg (Latin) and Hesselius (German?).
In contrast, too, to the painstaking process by which he acquires this knowledge the voice of the monkey (and its message) “comes like a singing through [his] head”.
Not sure where I’m going with this, but it leads somewhere!
May 19th, 2008 at 11:37 pmI think the little guy in the post’s sidebar image responds to my conflation freakily enough! In fact, he may even be the very same cymbal-wielding, soul-stealing chimp.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:39 pmRight, time for me to down a bucket of the greenest tea and then away to bed for a restless night of terror. Talk on the morrow.
‘Night.
[Exit, pursued by a monkey]
May 19th, 2008 at 11:47 pmMeanwhile, both Swedenborg and Hesselius are likely Swedish names. The languages themselves aren’t the tracks in the mash-up {tangentially, I fear that the “You Can’t Fight It” song is a mash-up, but I so desperately want it to be real} as much as the eras - epistemes - they represent.
Why a monkey, of all things?
May 19th, 2008 at 11:51 pmI’ll just, erm, hang out here awhile. Until the monkey’s gone.
May 19th, 2008 at 11:54 pmAll too well, I’m afraid. Do you still have the one you got at Uncle Fun? Charlie Chimp was his name, wasn’t it? He was made of solid evil.
May 20th, 2008 at 5:01 pmHe still is, but is safely ensconced in layers of bubblewrap and cardboard in a remote storage facility located in South Chicago. There’s no way he could be of any harm there.
May 20th, 2008 at 6:10 pm