The Cicerones

by Robert Aickman

12 pages, ebook

About the author

Author of: close to 50 "strange stories" in the weird-tale and ghost-story traditions, two novels (The Late Breakfasters and The Model), two volumes of memoir (The Attempted Rescue and The River Runs Uphill), and two books on the canals of England (Know Your Waterways and The Story of Our Inland Waterways).

Co-founder and longtime president of the Inland Waterways Association, an organization that in the middle of the 20th century restored a great part of England's deteriorating system of canals, now a major draw for recreation nationally and for tourism internationally.

Grandson of author Richard Marsh.

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

An English traveler, John Trant is on holiday touring a Belgian cathedral. He has half an hour in which to tour the cathedral before it closes between 12.00 PM and 2.00 PM. On entering the vast building Trant can't help noticing how silent it seemed to be within and how empty it appears to be. While reading and following his guidebook, he encounters several people along his self-guided tour who seem to suddenly appear and explain each piece of artwork highlighted in the book. Aickman uses the idea of cicerones as people who conduct visitors and sightseers as a metaphor in a tale about a man who seems to be guided to his doom. When he checks his watch several times it seems to have stopped at 11:28 AM (though the first line of the story reads "John Trant entered the Cathedral of Saint Bavon at almost exactly 11.30."). Hmmm, is this a clue that maybe time has stopped for John Trant at 11:28? My interpretation of this truly strange tale is about a man who is guided to his death as depicted by the increasing weirdness building gradually with each morbid piece of artwork he is shown by the various cicerones in the cathedral.

[Morts. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not for a while have I felt so creeped out, just a slight warping of reality and a suggestion that recognisable human-types are, somehow, disquietingly wrong. Remember Freddie Kruegers silhouetted arms extending in a darkened alley? There’s some clever progressive anxiety building with a succession of increasingly lurid church artworks. So much to admire.

I was again captivated by a 70’s ‘Armchair thriller’ UK tv drama, at an age that the apprehension wrought of such murky imagery feeds straight into dreams (the infamous faceless nun).

Aickman was a master of his craft.