Discontented pretty much covers it
A review of
The Discontented Ghost
I'm a discontented mortal...
Let me start by saying I LOVE Oscar Wilde. I LOVE his work. Love it. I've even pre-ordered the British DVD of Dorian Gray with Ben Barnes since it never had a US release and I trained my computer to be able to play region 2 DVDs. I know it's not very faithful to the books but it has to be better than the 2006 version that was badly acted and made Basil a woman and set it in the 1960s.
My two favourite works of Oscar Wilde are The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Canterville Ghost. And I have seen many adaptations of both.
I'm going to talk about adaptations here because what I am about to review is more or less an adaptation. A sequel not written by Oscar Wilde.
First, my least favourite version of The Canterville Ghost:
My least favourite version of The Canterville Ghost is the 1940s movie version which made it about an American soldier having to prove his bravery by killing a Nazi. That had nothing, and I mean NOTHING, to do with the original story. Even the ghost's cause of death was drastically changed for this so-called comedy (it was the bleakest version I had ever seen). They had the poor ghost (when he was alive) walled up for refusing to fight in a duel that was originally intended for his brother but the brother was hurt and couldn't fight. Since the ghost 'died a coward' his American descendant had to 'prove his bravery' by killing a Nazi. The ghost even begs the father that killed him for this 'cowardice' for forgiveness. This is awful! I HATE that version of The Canterville Ghost. How is it the forties version of The Picture of Dorian Gray was so true to the novel but The Canterville Ghost had nothing to do with it's book? They even added a Shirley Temple style little girl. The Otis family and fifteen-year-old Virginia were not existent in this version. A seven or eight year old girl owns a castle ...for some reason and American soldiers are staying it. One soldier happens to be related to the 'cowardly' ghost and he has to prove himself against Nazi for the ghost to move on. I can't wrap my mind around why this ghost would need to be forgiven for being starved to death for refusing to fight in a duel that was not his own. What the Hell!? It was pretty much all World War 2 propaganda. Oscar Wilde would have been rolling over in his grave, especially considering his original novella was written decades before the first World War and had nothing to do with soldiers or Nazis. If this film had just been retitled with a new name for the ghost I would not have even guessed it was an adaptation of The Canterville Ghost by Oscar Wilde.
Now for my favourite film version of The Canterville Ghost:
My favourite adaptation of The Canterville Ghost is the 1996 movie with Neve Campbell as Virginia Otis and Patrick Stewart as the ghost. I actually like this incarnation of the ghost more than the version in the actual book though I LOATHE Virginia's obnoxious father in this film adaptation. His character was over the top annoying. This, in my opinion, is the best film version of The Canterville Ghost. If you haven't seen it, it sells for about six dollars on amazon or you can find it on youtube broken into six parts as Patrick Stewart as a ghost (with a subsequent number after each piece). This version is modernized but The Canterville Ghost lends itself well to modernization.
Now for The Discontented Ghost...
As I have mentioned in a previous review there are three fictional ghosts I love above all else.
1. Sir Simon de Canterville of The Canterville ghost by Oscar Wilde (preferably Patrick Stewart's portrayal)
2. Hrothbert of Bainbridge AKA Bob from the TV show adaptation of The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher (Hrothbert of Bainbridge doesn't actually exist in the Dresden Files novels).
3. Captain Daniel Gregg from The Ghost and Mrs. Muir novel by R. A. Dick, film and TV show (though I never understood why he never revealed himself to the daughter in the show).
The plot of The Canterville Ghost is pretty straight forward. A very theatrical old ghost haunts a castle in rural England. Turns out he murdered his wife so he was starved to death and cursed. An American family moves into the castle and the story becomes a funny spoof of British propriety and American commercialism as the American family annoys the Hell out of the ghost trying to scare them away.
The ghost ends up befriending the teenage daughter of the family, fifteen-year-old, Virginia Otis. A prophecy is discovered:
'When a gentle girl can win
Prayer from out the lips of sin,
When a child gives up tears
And the barren almost bears,
When the silent chapel bell
Sounds the ghostly sinner's knell
Then shall the house be still
And peace shall come to Canterville.'
And needless to say Virginia helps the ghost, Sir Simon de Canterville, to move on. There's also a sweet little subplot where she ends up with the young duke whom lives near by. This subplot is expanded in the 1996 film adaptation. Many films leave it out all together. It's a simple story and very sweet though I do actually feel Patrick Stewart's version is a lot more sympathetic than his own book counter part whom at points didn't seem to regret killing his wife at all really and was a bit petty too.
About a year ago someone told me there had been a sequel to The Canterville Ghost. Of course it couldn't have been written by the late, great Oscar Wilde. So I tracked down this sequel and found it was a book published in the early seventies called The Discontented Ghost. Immediately I was intrigued. It was described as being The Canterville Ghost from the Ghost's point of view. This sounded interesting to me. I love classics told from other perspectives: The Vampire Lestat (alternate view of Interview with the vampire, Wicked the musical (I didn't like the novel as much) (alternate view of The Wizard of Oz), The True story of the Three little Pigs (alternate view of The Three little pigs). And I always had a fondness for Sir Simon de Canterville.
So I tracked down a copy of this semi-obscure sequel book and found a used library copy on ebay for three dollars. It seems the only copies available are old library copies for some reason. I wonder if it was ever sold in stores at all? Perhaps I should have taken this as a sign that the book just wasn't that good.
I braced myself. I prepared my mind. I knew there was no way this author of this obscure sequel could ever match the wit and flowing prose of Oscar Wilde. This was just going to be an elaborate fan fiction. I expected the classic story retold just from another angle and I didn't know what quality of writing style to expect.
Well... It was worse than I thought...
First the writing style was nothing like Oscar Wilde's. It wasn't a graceful, flowing prose like his writing. I had told myself it wouldn't be but the author could have at least tried to write like Oscar Wilde. There was no wit, humour or clever epigrams as you find in Oscar Wilde's writing.
Something that made me wince was the book had Virginia Otis using very dated terms like 'Groovy' and 'dream boat' and teaching them to the ghost. Okay, this would be okay if it was a contemporary reimagining but it's not. It was STILL set in 1889 as the original novella was. Somehow Virginia guessed that people would use these terms in the future... (For about a decade and a half...)
It was very hard to suspend my disbelief for that. Not to mention it made the sequel completely dated and all too obvious when it was written. Oscar Wilde never wrote like that.
This is a part that bothered me above all else. It's revealed that Virginia didn't help Sir Simon de Canterville find peace at all. I had hoped this book would be a parallel to the original story but from a new perspective or a prequel taking place before Oscar Wilde's story but apparently the majority of this book takes place after the original story.
Okay, fine. I guess for the story to take place outside of Heaven if it's set after the events of the original then certain changes had to be made. But this did not sit right for me at all. The whole point of the original story is that Virginia helps him move on.
It's about forgiveness, redemption and love. To quote The Canterville Ghost novella: 'He taught me what life is and what death signifies and how love is stronger than both.'
I think I never quite got over this change to the story. Instead of finding peace Virginia enables him to wander the Earth. So now he's 'free' to have adventures with historical and literary figures like a character from a Victorian sitcom...
Maybe I'll try to read it again in the near future. I had hopes for it. I knew it wouldn't compare to Oscar Wilde but I had hoped it would at least be fun entertainment brain candy. Maybe subconsciously I was hoping it would be a little more like Wilde's writing style. Maybe I couldn't get past the rewriting of the end of Wilde's novella. Either way The Discontented Ghost left me... discontented.
Last minute update: I just noticed my copy of the book was signed by the author. The seller never mentioned it. It's signed on the title page with the year 1983. Poor bastard's so obscure they didn't bother telling me he had signed the book... His name is Scott Corbett, by the way.
As far as adaptations go I think I'll stick with the 1996 movie of The Canterville Ghost. That showed more about the workings of Sir Simon de Canterville's mind than this so-called sequel.
The one good thing about this book is it's still better than the 1940s version of the story.