What do ghost stories have to do with ruins?
Ghosts haunting a romantic ruin is a bit of a cliche, really. In C. F. Volney's key work The Ruins (or, to give it its full title, The Ruins, or, Meditation on the Revolutions of Empires: and the Law of Nature), the narrator meets a spirit whilst contemplating the ruins of a long lost civilization:
Suddenly on my left, by the glimmering light of the moon, through the columns and ruins of a neighboring temple, I thought I saw an apparition, pale, clothes in large flowing robes, such as spectres are painted rising from their tombs.
(The picture and caption come from an 1890 American edition of the text).
Up until this point, the narrator has been bemoaning the fact that all great civilizations must come to an end. The ghost berates him, arguing that it's only human folly that causes societies to decline.
Refractions
Stone Tapes
The above pictures are all from Nigel Kneale's 1972 Christmas play, The Stone Tape. This was the TV play that, apart from terrifying the post-Christmas dinner audience, established in the popular imagination the explanation that ghosts were somehow electromagnetic recordings, mindlessly repeating events. In Kneale's story, it's the very walls themselves of the haunted house that hold the secrets to the spectral phenomena. Stone Tape Theory is now quite widely used as a label by people investigating/ writing about the paranormal.
A team of scientists do their best to crack the mystery ...
Of course, this being a ghost story, things turn out for the worst. An older, more malevolent entity is revealed ...
But the house isn't a ruin but, rather, a former ruin. The company employing the research team have actually spent a considerable amount of time and money renovating the house.
Broader Implications
Getting away from the actual spooks, I want to explore this idea of the Stone Tape as a explanation of some of our fascination with ruins. Another quotation (see
Modern Ruins Links) from
Shaun O'Boyle:
Memories are inscribed on the walls and in the discarded objects; the silent rooms and dust covered furniture recall moments when these places were occupied. One of the more powerful aspect of ruins is the subject that is missing in the photographs; the people who once worked and lived in these spaces, their presence can still be felt in the architecture and discarded objects. Ruins are the containers of events played out, still vibrant and suprisingly alive with the memories of the past.
But then why stop at ruins? Can't we say this about any house or building with a history? I am reminded of Stewart Brand's How Buildings Learn and its emphasis on the ways in which buildings change as their occupants go about the business of living in/ with them.
The two pictures are actually of the same buildings. On the left, we see the nineteenth century architectural drawings for the buildings on the right. Although they would have been built according to the architectural plans, various occupants have made many alterations in the following century. Have these occupants "ruined" the architect's building?
Thought: When one moves into a house for the first time, what remnants and traces of previous occupants are there? Are all houses "haunted", after a fashion?
Posted at Apr 11/2006 06:55PM:
Ka!t: When we leave somewhere, we leave part of ourselves behind, especially if we're particularly attached to the place. I think some poor soul who next gets my room will end up hearing my temper tantrums at God for hiding my stuff.
Posted at Apr 11/2006 08:04PM:
Ka!t: Forgive. 'Twas a jest, and nothing more, my last line.
Posted at Apr 16/2006 10:45AM:
David Platt: A nice idea -- but why only places that "mean" something to us? Don't we leave an imprint of varying degrees on all places that we pass through?
