Robert Aickman Readers discussion

When I started "Tales of Love and Death" recently, I had decided to skip this story as it was one I had read before and not one of my favourites. It seems that I was not alone among fellow Aickman readers in regarding that story as one of his lesser efforts. But I decided to read it again and I'm glad I did because it affected me quite differently this time. Reading it the second time around it struck me less as a black comedy and being more subtle than I originally gave it credit for.

To start with, I discovered than Millie's husband Phineas shared the name with a king of ancient Greece who was blinded by Zeus and tormented by harpies who stole or defiled his food and drove him to the corners of the world. In the story Phineas was of course blind to to the outrageous behaviour of his sons and never able to enjoy his food despite being continuously hungry and nagging Millie to prepare him food. He also proposes to leave the household to stand for parliament in a far flung constituency of England.

The overarching theme of the story seemed to me to be the conflict between generations, between progressive and conservative social forces.

When Millie leaves Phineas, she imagines herself at first liberated but instead retreats into the comfort and security of her uncle Stephen's protective and cloying care, never coming to grips with her apparent sexuality and love for the fortune teller Thelma.

The vision Millie sees of the boys eating and picking over the bones of their father perhaps symbolises the way each generation cannibalises the previous.

The final scene in which an explicit reference to "babes in the wood" is made, the traditional tale in which two children are left to die in the wood and are covered with leaves by birds, suggests that the boys were really innocent, only wanting to eat so that their "strength would not exceed their size".

Certainly, I would not suggest that I have in any way a complete understanding of the story but my appreciation of it has definitely risen on re-reading.

I'm in a similar situation, having just reread it for the WDS group read... I still think it's the weakest story I've read by Aickman: too long & unfocused. I find the description of how big the boys are at any given point too vague & so it's all hard to visualise.

That said, there were some bits that struck me on rereading it. I guess it's in some ways about society always blames the younger generation, and about family breakup.

Some interesting references you spotted.

I just finished it and have a couple of things to add.
I was struck by these reversals: The wife is assertive, while the husband is passive. (Don't hit me PC police - consider when it was written)
Thelma, the fortune teller is the opposite of the welcoming, indulgent prototype: offhand, dowdy, rude, careless about payment.
An unconnected thought. The boys may symbolise colonies of the late-stage British Empire: Ungrateful, greedy, and dangerous. (A prosaic thought, not very Aickman, I know.