How My Inner Skeptic Affected My Experience Of This Book: A Review of Ghosts of the Silent Hills by Anita Krishan
Book: Ghosts of The Silent Hills: Stories based on true hauntings. Original Date of Publication: 2019. Genre: Short Story Collection. Pages: 312 pages.
This is a series of short stories, many of them based in Himalayan towns and cities and all revolving around the supernatural. The book is divided into two parts with five stories each. The first part is indeed based in the hills but the second part is based in Delhi, Kolkata and even in Canberra, Australia before returning to the mountains in the penultimate story. As such, ‘Ghosts of the Silent Hills’ is not an entirely accurate name. The tales vary from accounts of a midnight supper party on the grounds of an old British mansion to a double murder in the dormitory of a girls’ college to a little girl wreaking vengeance on her father’s girlfriend for breaking up her happy family.
The first three stories are about people closely associated with the author herself. As the stories progress, they turn from the very personal and family oriented ones to more objective, third person accounts. The later stories sit better with the reader, they raise less questions and are less of a problem for a skeptic to read through. And therein lies the biggest problem with the book.
From the very beginning, the author claims to be narrating actual accounts. The subtitle of the book is ‘Stories based on true hauntings’. The blurb at the back seems to be aimed at people who don’t believe in ghosts. It is an attempt to convince the reader, as if these stories are being laid out as proof. Even the author claims in her preliminary notes that while she has never witnessed any supernatural happenings herself she believes in ghosts. She believes in them perhaps even against her common sense. It is an idea that chases you throughout the novel, that this is real, that this happened, that you should believe this. This, in my opinion, makes the book that much weaker.
Never before have I read ghost stories and made notes to myself that it is too dramatic, that it is too unrealistic. Being a ghost story, it is supposed to be unrealistic. That fact should not be detracting from the enjoyment of the story. But as I encountered Hollywood levels of dramatic chases, vengeful spirits, spurting blood and people suffering from breakdowns and fits in story after story, the book became less and less enjoyable. As the stories become more and more unbelievable, the caveat that they are true and should be believed is impossible to dig out of one’s brain.
The later stories are easier to accept because they are not stamped by the author’s presence. There are no first person accounts there and it is easier to distance them from the author and read them for what they are, ghost stories that are meant to be frightening and thrilling. Most of the stories are quite good as far as ghost stories go and would be very enjoyable if the drama was dialed down a little.
Krishan’s language is strange. She does well with the anecdotes and retelling of events. Her descriptions of nature however, of which there are many, are full of elaborate words and odd turns of phrases. Some examples are “His upheld opinion added more flavor to the story” and “…where gushed the river Sutlej through its rapids” which stand out as being rather awkward and stilted. In her written dialogue, she at times drops articles which I quite liked as it imparts a slightly colloquial nature to the speech, Indian vernaculars not exactly possessing the equivalents of the English articles. She has a good grasp on the beats of the story for the most part and when she does not stop to add superfluous imagery she weaves the tale in an absolutely gripping manner.
What I liked about the book was that she dealt with various kinds of ghosts. They were not all vengeful satanic beings bent on taking their dues. There were some who were simply lonely in their suspended forms and wished for companionship, some who merely wished to be left alone and have their things undisturbed and some who were a combination of the lot. The ghosts themselves were complex beings and not caricatures for the most part. Even the ones who did want vengeance had good reasons for it and had specific targets. The ghosts were characters in their own stories and not simply plot devices. This should not be a unique concept for ghost stories but it often is. This was well done and the subtler stories such as ‘The Unfinished Party’, ‘Lonely in Death’, ‘The Third Housemate’ and ‘The Lodge’ were excellent. Similar to ghost stories that I have heard narrated to me by believers, with all their characteristics of shivers down the back and shadows out of the corner of the eyes and mysterious lights, these stories actually make sense as a collection of retellings of actual hauntings. If the rest were like these, it would be both a stronger and at the same time creepier book.
There is some internalized misogyny in the stories. Why is it always ghosts of young girls who roam around looking for young men? Why does the ghost of little Lucy haunt her father’s girlfriend when her father is the one actually to blame for the breakup of her family? What is the purpose of the comments about the lack of freedom in married life for a man in the last story? All points that are unnecessary or could be worked around so these questions would not be raised.
In conclusion, Ghosts of the Silent Hills is far from a perfect book. There are many things the author could have done to iron out faults which stand out most starkly. However, it is an enjoyable book. Some of the stories work very well indeed and even offer a unique perspective on ghosts. This is not a book that falls in the genre of horror necessarily. It is a book that features simple stories about ordinary people that ghosts happen to be a definitive presence in. Undoubtedly, some stories are better than the others. But that is the case for all short story collections.
