The Attempted Rescue

But is this a local book? Well, almost. "The League of Gentlemen's" main writer Jeremy Dyson acknowledges cult twentieth-century author of ghost stories Robert Aickman as a major influence on his writing, and those who know Aickman's work have long seen its effect on the dark comedy of the BBC TV series. But from where did all this strangeness originate? Aickman's first volume of autobiography, "The Attempted Rescue", may help to provide a few clues, and Jeremy Dyson has written an astute new Foreword for this edition, in which he describes "The Attempted Rescue" as 'the oddest book I have ever read.' So much of Aickman's childhood and youth was bizarre and unyielding of explanation that it is little wonder that his short stories lack closure. Aickman invests the book with his startling, politically incorrect opinions on politics, the modern industrial world and his rather bleak view of sexual relationships. But there is also much achingly heart-felt nostalgia in the atmospheric descriptions of pre-World War Two London, the theatre and the large country house of his singular Great Uncle and Aunt. But more than anything else, over much of "The Attempted Rescue" looms the figure of Aickman's eccentric father, a man almost entirely resistant to 'normal' family life, and a man who Aickman describes as dying 'from loss of luxuries.' Aickman displays more than a passing acquaintance with psychoanalysis in this fascinating work, and one must infer that the disturbing images with which he invests his fiction are there by design. Then again, when such a master of the weird tale tells the story of his own life, how far can we be sure that he is not manipulating our expectations as subtly as he does in his stories?

Review :
Read The Attempted Rescue if you are an admirer of the artist; read it also for a glimpse of a time long gone, of a past which, as Jeremy Dyson points out in his shrewd and sympathetic introduction to this volume, is indeed a foreign country. - Steve Duffy, All Hallows Aickman shows a solid comprehension of Freudian theory and he frequently refers to the sexual frustration resulting from single sex schooling and his shy nature. He demonstrates a perceptive awareness of symbols and their effect on the subconscious and comments on experiencing inexplicable fear induced by objects which in retrospect he sees as sexual symbols. This in itself certainly encourages a close re-reading of The Collected Strange Stories. - Matt Leyshon, Enigma (Waterstone's magazine) Of interest to casual reader and macabre aficionado alike are those recounted memories of the bizarre, uncertain moments of fragility and uncertainty which invested Aickman's childhood with such penetrating depths of insecurity and unresolvedness - 'Fine Frights' column from The Horror Within