Wed 6 Nov 2019
Reviewed by Dan Stumpf: DENNIS WHEATLEY – The Haunting of Toby Jugg.
Posted by Steve under Reviews[13] Comments
DENNIS WHEATLEY – The Haunting of Toby Jugg. Hutchinson, UK, hardcover, 1948. Bantam, US, paperback, 1972. Several paperback editions have been published. TV film: BBC Four, UK, as The Haunted Airman, with Robert Pattinson as Toby Jugg.
I wuz had.
I mean there I was, all alone in the Big city and looking for some Halloween reading. I’d heard of Dennis Wheatley, and the cover of the Arrow paperback suckered me in good & proper. Then too, the story seemed pretty good at first, if a little long at 352 pages. So I settled myself in for a chilling tale of things Satanic, little suspecting….
Haunting is one of those books written as a series of journal entries, here by the eponymous Toby Jugg, an RAF flyer (this is set in 1943) recovering from war wounds that left him unable to walk. He’s also the heir to several million pounds and an industrial empire, due to inherit when he turns twenty-one in a few weeks, and he’s convalescing in one of the family castles, far from the madding bombs – and contact with society—under the watchful eye of Helmuth, a trusted family friend.
And oh yes: as the story opens there’s a giant spider outside his window trying to get in.
Wheatley sets this up capably, with Toby giving updates on the spider’s appearances and the reactions of Helmuth and the staff specially hired to look after him. We very quickly come to suspect he’s being gaslighted, and I won’t be giving anything away to say that he is—but there’s more to it than that. Something implacably evil has plans for Toby that go well beyond giant spiders at the window.
With all that going for it,
The chief problem is Wheatley’s repetitive plotting. Time and again Toby comes up with a plan to thwart his persecutors, gets things rolling, comes close to success but… but we still have all those pages to fill so his efforts get frustrated with metronomic regularity. Once or twice I could have handled this, but after the fourth or fifth failure, and 200+ pages to go, I began to wonder if someone was trying to drive both of us mad.
Another thing: Maybe it sounds inconsistent to accept giant spiders and Satanic curses, then gripe about the story being unrealistic, but when Toby masters the art of Hypnotism and bends the unwilling and unsuspecting to his will just by eye contact, I felt like Wheatley must be kidding us. And when he forcibly hypnotizes someone by wrestling them to the ground and holding their eyes open, I devoutly wished he were kidding. Only he ain’t.
There’s also a strong current of Anti-Semitism here. “Anti-Semitism†is a term that gets entirely too much play these days, but Wheatley’s story posits that Jews, having killed Christ, will think small potatoes of serving Satan, turning Communist, bringing down the Government, and ushering in a Satanocracy. There’s even a racial slur, when Toby observes that a character with a tinge of Jewish blood can’t properly wear the clothes of an English Squire. Readers of vintage fiction like this should be prepared to overlook the attitudes of a different time, particularly toward minorities, but this taxed my tolerance for intolerance.
But I hung on to the end, buoyed, I must admit, by Wheatley’s gift for tension. And as the odds stacked up against Toby, and he worked even harder to plot an escape, I became emotionally invested in just how he would do it.
Came the dawn, and I realized what a fool I had been. Betrayed again by a smooth line and my own weakness, I finally got to the dramatic climax and found it the most blatantly stage-managed bit of deus ex machina claptrap I have ever read. I — literally, and without exaggeration — flung it across the room and regretted the squander of my precious youth on such drivel.
Steve, should I tell them about it? I’ll let you decide. We can either end it here with me waving readers away from this thing, or insert a SPOILER ALERT! And go on. In either case, they have been warned!
Surrounded by Satanists and menaced by a spider the size of a St Bernard, Toby Prays to God for help. And God answers. Suddenly Toby can walk again. And he has some mystical power that disintegrates the Spider. The Satanists are momentarily cowed by this display of Holy capabilities, but they rally to a counter-attack, driven on by their own greed and fear of demonic retribution. And just at that moment, another inmate who has been tunneling out in secret, hits the lake on the estate, and water gushes in, drowning the godless and sparing our hero.
For this I came three hundred and fifty pages??
November 6th, 2019 at 6:07 pm
Wheatley is certainly problematic, THE DEVIL RIDES OUT also ends with an act of God, as does the Hammer film with Chris Lee. At one point in the film Lee’s character convinces a Jewish character to wear a crucifix for protection. Richard Matheson scripted that one.
His Anti-Semitism is, again, problematic, since one of his three musketeer heroes in the de Richelieu series is Simon, a young Jew and the d’Artagnan of the bunch. In THEY USED DARK FORCES his Gregory Sallust is assisted in his occult actions against the Nazi’s by a Jewish Satanist who is far too much a Merchant of Venice type for any comfort but finally and surprisingly something of a tragic figure, but in another de Richelieu novel he takes on the racism of one of his heroes (the American from the South of course).
The best you can say is Wheatley is no worse than many of his contemporaries, but like many Englishmen of his class was paranoid about the “Jewish” roots of the Russian Revolution (his BLACK AUGUST has the Communist trying to overthrow England with a General Strike, terrorism, and sabotage). Colin Watson wrote in his book on thirties thrillers,SNOBBERY WITH VIOLENCE, about how common many of these views were with the ordinary Englishman who read thrillers, but it can be tough going for modern readers.
This nonsense lasted much later in the British thriller and still showed up in the fifties in some cases where at least in most American popular fiction it was at worst hinted but not said out loud.
I admit I enjoy Wheatley despite his excesses and his sometimes heavy hand. HAUNTING though is one whose classic status I’ve always thought over wrought (the title character in THE KA OF GIFFORD HILLARY spends much of the novel in his tomb wandering around as a disembodied spirit trying to convince people he isn’t really dead and to solve his own murder). It’s my least favorite of Wheatley’s supernatural thrillers for many of the reasons Dan mentions.
Ironically Wheatley wasn’t particularly religious and didn’t believe in the supernatural. In his book on the occult the most he says is that he finds it potentially psychologically harmful. Wheatley himself was actually a bit of a poseur, not quite a gentleman as it used to be said in his time, coming close to being a criminal (at least a con man) at one point in his early life, and given to the kind of class snobbery only a pretender can really manage. I tend to take his sincerity about anything with a grain of salt.
Wheatley once said he never knew a bestselling writer who knew the meaning of syntax, and he seemed at times on a one man crusade to prove his own maxim.
Still, it’s hard to argue with a man who sold over sixty million books in his lifetime world wide. They can’t all be sixty million people who bought one book and then threw it across the room (not that I haven’t felt the urge myself).
Showman, charlatan, poseur, patriot (he contributed much to the War effort as part of a key action in the invasion of Europe) he somehow connected with millions of readers over several decades, maybe because there is ultimately something just a little slippery about him. You are never absolutely sure where you are with him.
November 6th, 2019 at 9:36 pm
Member of the London Controlling Section as I recall. Colleague of Ian Fleming and in with all those other ‘old boys’. That’s how he figures in my recollection. Pretty significant player. His supernatural fiction series is so incongruous when arrayed against this history of espionage service, that I’ve never explored it. Strange predilection. Can only shake my head in perplexity. Content to leave it to better heads than mine, to reconcile.
November 6th, 2019 at 10:10 pm
I had a complete set of Wheatley once in a uniform edition (I’ve forgotten what it was called). I enjoyed most of the ones I read in spite of the obvious flaws that are mentioned here.
November 6th, 2019 at 10:20 pm
Like Lazy. I’ve read dipped my toe into Wheatley water with his historical spy fiction. One I remember (I think) was THE LAUNCHING OF ROGER BROOK. Based on that one, I bought quite a few of the followup books in the series, but the sheer length of them was intimidating, and I don’t believe I read another. Like Lazy, Wheatley’s supernatural fiction attracted me not at all.
November 6th, 2019 at 10:38 pm
In case anyone’s interested, here’s a long review of the BBC movie production, apparently available on DVD:
https://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/39222/haunted-airman-the/
November 6th, 2019 at 11:05 pm
Lazy,
Wheatley wasn’t just a member, he was in charge of the section, suggested by Fleming (then Assistant to the Director of Naval Intelligence). Along with Col. David Niven they were responsible for getting a group of some of the most inventive, and difficult, people in the British film industry and other theatrical types to put together the subterfuge that convinced the Germans the invasion would come in Calais rather than Normandy. Among the many successful coups they pulled off was a famous British illusionist aiding the French in making a mass of French troops “disappear” in North Africa catching Rommel flat footed.
Ironically Wheatley and Fleming, who both created characters based on the notorious Alister Crowley (Wheatley’s Mocata in THE DEVIL RIDES OUT and Fleming’s Blofield), interviewed the self styled “Beast” seeing if he could be used in the secret war. Ultimately he proved to be too unreliable, but did put them in contact with a noted creator of astrological charts in Europe who did become an agent, and drew the astrological charts for Hitler’s chief astrologer for much of the war.
November 6th, 2019 at 11:09 pm
Steve,
Like the Gregory Sallust books, the Roger Brook series veered into the occult, particularly in what is widely regarded as the best Brook novel, THE DARK SECRET OF JOSEPHINE, which suggests the first Mrs. B. was deeply involved in Voudon or Voodoo reflecting her Caribbean roots.
November 7th, 2019 at 11:05 am
Indeed, his war career is worth re-visiting. Thanks for the reminder. I just haven’t had any reason to mull over his resume’ for a long time.
There were so many similar others as well: Graham Greene and W. Somerset Maugham both assisted their nation, for example. Maugham’s ‘Ashenden’ –well, you know about that, I’m sure.
But, look too at all these names: Gertrude Bell, T.E. Lawrence, Maxwell Knight, William Stephenson, Basil Thomson, Robert Baden-Powell, William Robertson, John Cecil Masterman, Compton MacKenzie, Mansfield Smith-Cumming, Millis Rowland Jefferis, Alexander Wilson, Stewart Menzies, Lionel Crabb, Richard Meinertzhagen. That was the community.
I’m as interested as the next man is, in the history of the world wars and some of these individuals are truly extraordinary, as were the wartime operations they pulled off. (‘Operation Mincemeat’, for example, or ‘Operation Lusty’, bizarre.)
Anyway I guess the point I’m making is, Dennis Wheatley certainly earns my admiration for his service to his nation but somehow, his flair for supernatural fiction just never tantalized me.
Maybe it’s my fault –maybe the entire strain of “occult + detection” just doesn’t grab me? I know the sub-genre goes back a long way, but nonetheless …seems to me it’s an odd line of country.
November 7th, 2019 at 11:24 am
Oh –btw –anyone remember Robert Culp in 1977’s “Specter”, a TV movie produced by Gene Roddenberry? I always thought that was adapted from Wheatley but probably just a mistake on my part. Link:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(1977_film)
November 7th, 2019 at 11:57 am
Leslie Howard (allegedly) and Frederick Forsyth (Day of the Jackal) two more public figures ‘doing their bit’ for the Queen. But I can probably name just one figure who’s writing I’ve enjoyed the most out of all these patriots. Surprisingly, it is Ian Fleming’s forgotten elder brother, Peter. Nonfiction author; but his travel books and biographies are all thumpingly good. He was on the rescue mission to find the lost Fawcett Expedition, among other adventures. Supposedly, Ian always felt eclipsed by his sibling’s shadow.
November 7th, 2019 at 4:22 pm
Lazy,
I was just mentioning Wheatley had a “good war”, not advocating for him. Quite a few people did as you mention including Peter Fleming (in one sense Ian competed with his then more famous brother most of his life, but Ian was higher up in intelligence than Commando Peter, who was fairly high up himself — incidentally the main character in Peter’s spy novel SIXTH COLUMN was loosely based on Dennis Wheatley), Noel Coward, those you mention, Julia Child, no few future spy novelists.
While Wheatley certainly contributed greatly to winning the war he was far from an active agent like Shaun McCarthy (Desmond Cory), or escaped from a POW camp across the Alps like Michael Gilbert, or even parachuted behind enemy likes like Bulldog Drummond model and author Gerard Fairlie. I just always find it interesting when thriller writers have such an adventurous resume.
November 8th, 2019 at 9:09 am
Indeed it is. In a way, it makes the author himself a character in the drama he unfolds for his readers.
I wasn’t aware of Julia Child’s backstory, so thank you for that tip. This is all rather rare subject matter I must say. These days, I never even run into anyone who knows the name George Smiley. Only the occasional revisiting of LeCarre’s material by the media keeps that timely. And LeCarre himself is in the news, he has a new book out, etc.
A crony of mine is doing well with nonfiction WWII espionage biographies. Larry Loftis. Currently in talks with Lion’s Gate studios for an adaptation.
November 9th, 2019 at 4:53 pm
Though I didn’t know them well I was with the State Department in intelligence living in London in the early seventies and was lucky enough to meet some of the characters who inspired James Bond (Conrad O’Brien-ffrench, Eddie Chapman, Fitzroy Maclean …) and suspense novelist/spy John Bingham who was the model for George Smiley (who he detested). It puts an interesting twist on their fictional counterparts to have met the men in question — all more interesting than their heroic counterparts.