To the majority of his readership – especially those in the United Kingdom – M. R. James will forever be inextricably linked to the Christmas holiday season, although it was originally a gossamer connection. The association was slow in coming from the outset: in 1893 James’ read his very first ghost story, “Canon Alberic’s Scrap-book,” to a fireside gathering of his Cambridge social club – the Chitchat Society, where he was surrounded by good friends nursing fine, old port and listening to the rain scratching on the windowpanes. However, the inaugural reading took place – not at Christmas – but on a rainy autumn night.
Eventually, of course, the readings began to take place closer and closer to the end of the Michaelmas term (October – December), before eventually being pushed into the waning days of December. Ultimately, James’ readings always coincided with Christmas Eve or the days just before it: the traditional time for telling ghost stories in Britain.
This association deepened even further in the 1970s when Lawrence Gordon Clark’s classic A Ghost Story for Christmas anthology began releasing atmospheric adaptations of M. R. James’ best ghost stories (along with one of Dickens’ and a few originals) during the holiday season. However, as far as James’ actual stories are concerned, only one (“The Story of a Disappearance and an Appearance”) is set firmly during Christmastide, and only a few others (“Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You,” “An Evening’s Entertainment,” etc.) have an ambiguously winter setting that may or may not coincide with the holiday. In fact, his best stories very often took place during the spring and summertime, when muggy nights would induce his protagonists to unwisely leave their windows ajar, explore forbidding ruins on school vacation, or go on take in the evening air on mild, moonlit strolls.
Other than his one Christmas story (and a handful of tales set on saints’ days and pagan festivals), James’ stories rarely take place on days with any cultural significance: spooky holidays Hallowe’en and Midsummer Eve are both mentioned only once in passing, but they, Walpurgis Night, New Year’s Eve, Michaelmas, and the like (all traditional times for hauntings) are never a significant part of any plot.
One story, however, is set during an international holiday, and though there is only one passing reference – easily missed – which can place it on the calendar of holidays, it is a detail which draws spades of frequently missed significance out of the fate of its two tragic foils: two young men whose lives are sacrificed (one willingly out of duty, and one shamefully as a penance) to secure their countrymen from invasion and disaster. The story, of course, is his magnum opus – “A Warning to the Curious” – and the holidays (for in fact there are two) in question are Passover and Easter.
THE UNIQUE SIGNIFICANCE OF
“A WARNING TO THE CURIOUS”
IN JAMES’ BODY OF WORK
(Our illustration for the tale from our 2021 anthology)
“A Warning to the Curious” is arguably James’ swan song. Certainly, it is his last great story: although it was followed by one very good story (“Wailing Well”), three decent stories with intriguing ideas (“Rats,” “The Malice of Inanimate Objects,” and “The Uncommon Prayer Book”), and a chilling autobiographical description of James’ only recorded brush with what may have been a ghost (“A Vignette”), he would never again write a story so rich with power and genius.
Indeed, it is the only work of true genius included in his final anthology, “A Warning to the Curious and Other Ghost Stories” (“A View from a Hill” and “The Haunted Dolls’ House” are very capable, but not brilliant like this), and the first truly outstanding tale since his 1911 collection “More Ghost Stories” (which boasts the likes of “Casting the Runes” and “Barchester Cathedral”).
The best story of his in over a decade, it immediately invites comparisons to “Oh, Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad” and other masterpieces from James’ freshman anthology (viz., “Count Magnus” and “Abbot Thomas”). While each of his collections boasts a handful of great stories (“A Thin Ghost,” perhaps, being the weakest), the inaugural collection, “Ghost Stories of an Antiquary,” is widely regarded as the strongest of the four, and “A Warning to the Curious” seems to deftly sample from this vintage: it reuses the gloomy, Suffolk beachfront setting, unstoppable, predatory ghost, and psychological hijackings of “Oh, Whistle,” as well as the desperate pursuit, tragic protagonist, and brutal punishment of “Count Magnus,” and the ill-starred treasure hunt, vindictive guardian, and mission to replace the find from “Abbot Thomas.”
Likewise it shares elements with other masterworks from the warmly regarded second collection: “Casting the Runes,” “Mr Humphreys and His Inheritance,” “The Tractate Middoth.” We could view this as evidence of James’ increasingly derivative writing, or as a lazy attempt to re-ignite the early fire, but I do not: to me, the genius of “A Warning to the Curious” lies in its intentional reassessment of James’ early work and of his earlier worldview.
THE TRAGIC, HISTORICAL MELIEU OF
“A WARNING TO THE CURIOUS”
(My apologies for triggering any Blackadder fans)
The natural follow-up question to this is, why does “A Warning to the Curious” carry so much weight? Even compared to stories about the deaths of children (“Lost Hearts,” “Haunted Dolls’ House,” “Residence at Whitminster,” etc.) it has a denser cloud of sorrow about it. Although there may be many theories about this, one has been widely embraced by scholars and readers as having a ring of truth to it: this is a story about the war.
The clues to this are manifold, and while some readers might frown on jumping to so easy a solution, they appear to bear the weight of the argument. We learn that William Ager – who has only been dead a matter of weeks or months – died due to sitting out in the cold, guarding the crown, a duty only necessary during times of warfare, and a duty performed by his father during the Boer War (1899 – 1902). If William has done this between 1902 and 1925, then it was – surely – during World War I (1914 – 1918).
Other clues include the dates in James’ early manuscripts: he has changed out the original dates of the story’s action and Ager’s death for the ambiguous “19—,” but the original date of both events was 1916 – the same year as the traumatizing Somme Offensive which resulted in nearly half a million British casualties, including many Cambridge men. This was later crossed out and replaced with 1917 – another banner year for casualties – before being crossed out a final, third time and replaced with 19—.
Other hints which have been picked up on include the apparent isolation of the town during what should be a fairly active time of year – the peak of spring – as well as the regular references to digging trenches and the specific threats of Germans. [Side note: It is certainly interesting that James emphasizes the Germans, historical allies of Britain, because the Vikings, Danes, Saxons, Spanish, and French were much more relevant enemies in English history. Germans (especially the Prussians and Hanoverians) were reliable allies of the German-descended British royal families of Hanover and Saxe-Coburg during the Wars of Religion, 18th century cabinet wars, the French Revolutionary Wars, Napoleonic Wars, and the reign of Victoria and her Saxon husband, Albert.]
Even the last glimpse of Paxton running into the mist, only to be swallowed up by the clouds and found brutally disfigured feels like an allusion to soldiers going “over the top” and charging into the smoke of battle, never to return from the perils of the no-man’s land. A famous photo of British infantry advancing into a cloudbank of mustard gas during the 1915 Battle of Loos has always come to my mind (pictured below).
The war was, naturally, a national trauma. Britain and her colonies suffered 888,000 military deaths – roughly 2% of the population – 1.6 million wounded, and a further 17,000 civilian deaths from air raids, torpedoed passenger ships, and the like. In all, Cambridge University would lose 2,470 students in battle, or 18% of those who enlisted. For James, this experience became deeply personal: he would write letters to the parents of King’s College students who died in combat, frequently spoke at their funerals, and even wrote the text for the royal scroll which was presented to the next of kin of each deceased British serviceman.
The scroll, which was written in ornate calligraphy, and accompanied a bronze medallion, read: “He whom this scroll commemorates was numbered among those who, at the call of King and Country, left all that was dear to them, endured hardness, faced danger, and finally passed out of the sight of men by the path of duty and self-sacrifice, giving up their own lives that others might live in freedom. Let those who come after see to it that his name be not forgotten” (and here the serviceman’s name was penned in handwritten red ink).
The war – as his biographers note – was a traumatic experience for James, as it shook him out of his academic comfort and forced him to confront the very real monsters of his own era. With this war, there was no distance of centuries to provide relief to him (unlike the English Civil War, Popish Plot executions, Glorious Revolution, witch hangings, Viking raids, or the Crusades, of which he could write easily enough about). It was – as so many of his ghosts behaved – shoved into his face with relentless aggression, and as he read about students and (younger) colleagues of his who had been killed on the fields of France and Belgium, the horror of modern humanity seemed to settle upon him.
It may be for this reason that his post-war stories suffer in creativity and have a strong tendency to be set almost entirely in speculative past, with little connection to the present day (cf. “Evening’s Entertainment,” “Residence at Whitminster,” “Two Doctors”). All of this – the shift in horror of the perils of industrial modernity, the personal trauma, and the anxiety of being helpless to protect his young protegees from larger forces of death – shapes “A Warning to the Curious” into James’ most emotionally unique story.
PAXTON VS. AGER:
TWO DIFFERENT RESPONSES TO DUTY
(WITH SADLY SIMILAR RESULTS)
("No diggin' 'ere!")
And so we begin “A Warning to the Curious” with two very different young men juxtaposed against each other, and set for a deadly collision course. Both appear to be in their twenties or early thirties – old enough to be called a “man” rather than a “boy,” but young enough to have the word “man” qualified as “young.” It is immediately obvious that – if it is reasonable, given both James’ original manuscript and the clues throughout the story, to read this story as having a wartime setting – neither man appears to have served in the military at a time when nearly 70% of able-bodied British men in their 20s and 30s saw military service of some kind.
It is noteworthy, however, that this did not include the 25% of service-aged men who were considered physically or mentally unfit to enlist or be drafted. Both of our young men may fall into this category: Paxton is almost immediately identified as “anemic” and “rabbity,” and while Ager developed tuberculosis while guarding the crown at night, it sounds as though his health was already compromised and susceptible to a decline.
Therefore, we still have two fairly equivalent young men: roughly the same age, both suffering from poor constitutions, and neither – so it would seem – serving in a branch of the military during a time when well over half of healthy, young men were wearing khaki. The difference between them is almost entirely found in their response to their luck to be excused from service. Ager immediately takes it upon himself to serve his country by camping out by the crown, and – in this way – still manages to experience something of the bitter life of a soldier: standing watch in miserable conditions, protecting state secrets with his life, and sleeping under the naked sky while his health deteriorates.
Like his fellows overseas, he literally gives his life for his country, without an apparent thought or complaint. Paxton, meanwhile, (whose name has often been noted for beginning with the Latin word for “peace”), chooses to spend his time in a manner which is both very similar and very different from Ager. While he also follows in the footsteps of soldiers: spending his time digging trenches, carrying out night patrols, and formulating elaborate strategies to avoid detection by his enemies, he does so for motives which are entirely self-interested.
He is certainly not a criminal or egomaniac – his desire to locate the crown seems utterly academic, and born from curiosity, not out of greed or vanity – but at a time when the discovery could leave the nation vulnerable to invasion, he doesn’t show an even passing concern for the implications to national security.
From a biographical criticism standpoint, I wonder if James wrote himself into Paxton: he often talked a big game about British sovereignty and patriotism, but I truly believe that he was in awe of his students who willingly left the snug coziness of their Cambridge lounges for the cold misery of the trenches.
I do not mean this in a sentimental way (although he was obviously deeply touched and impressed by their sacrifices): I doubt that he could imagine himself making a similar choice when there was so much puttering to be done about country churches and French monasteries, and so much reading and biking to catch up on.
Paxton is certainly a Jamesian figure: while we don’t know his profession, he is immediately welcomed as a sort of mentee/colleague by the two older academics, and he certainly has professional experience with archaeology (having lead some excavations in the down country). That being said, he still has a sense of the amateur about him (just as James always did) in that he was never willing to fully pour himself into archaeology as a professional, but enjoyed reaping the rewards of others, or doing a bit of speculative investigation during his biking holidays.
Both men are loners, both are enamored with uncovering lost artifacts if only to be able to say – as the narrator does – that they were able to lay eyes on it, and both remained single, unattached, and aloof from strong social ties (“the fact was he had nobody”). Paxton may be a bit of a James wish fulfilment – much like Baxter in “A View from a Hill” – though not without a self-addressed warning of the pitfalls of a solitary, self-indulgent life.
Meanwhile, Ager is the exact opposite: working class, uneducated, devoted to his family, nation, and commission above all else (especially above his safety and personal interested), and motivated by unquestioning duty and honor rather than the reckless and scintillating personal curiosity which brings Paxton to Ager’s outpost. The two men share so much physically – age, gender, constitution, habits, isolation – but so little in terms of their motivations and values. However, both share one more critical trait: both are sacrificed for their country.
PASSOVER AND EASTER:
A VIOLENT, PUBLIC SACRIFICE
FOR COLLECTIVE ATONEMENT
(Christ depicted as a fatally wounded Passover Lamb
sacrificing its life for humanity)
This brings us to the final significant piece of this story – a keystone which is rarely addressed but which is critical to understanding the deep current of mythic power with which James designed it. It is this context which provides the entire literary structure which makes it a masterpiece. One of the most crucial elements of this story is that it takes place during the Jewish feast of Passover, which corresponds to the Christian holy day of Easter.
Most readers would be forgiven for missing the single reference, either because it is mentioned only once, or because James uses a term which many readers – even Christians or Jews – may not be familiar with: “Paschal moon,” the full moon that initiates the Jewish Passover holiday (“Pascha” is the Greek word for “Passover”).
Passover is not celebrated on a fixed date on the Gregorian calendar, but rather on the first full moon following the Spring Equinox (technically the date is set on the 15th day of the Jewish month of Nisan, but Jewish months are based on lunar phases, and change from year to year). The principle Christian holiday, Easter, is similarly celebrated on the Sunday following Nisan 15, due to the fact that Jesus was executed during Passover.
Passover, one of the most important Jewish festivals, celebrates final plague of Egypt during the last days of the Israelites’ slavery. Moses, their leader, had prophesied that the Angel of Death would sweep through Egypt, slaying the first-born child of every family. The only way to deter its visit – for Egyptians and Israelites alike – was to sacrifice a spotless lamb and to mark the doorposts of the house with its blood:
“The sacrificial animal, which was either a lamb or goat, had to be a male, one year old, and without blemish. Each family or society offered one animal together… The [Passover lamb] was slain on the eve of the Passover, on the afternoon of the 14th of Nisan... The slaughtering took place in the courtyard of the Temple at Jerusalem. The slaughter could be performed by a layman, although the rituals dealing with the blood and fat had to be carried out by a priest. The blood had to be collected by a priest, and rows of priests with gold or silver cups in their hands stood in line from the Temple court to the altar, where the blood was sprinkled.” (Wikipedia)
The slaughter of these animals was done in part to atone for the sins of the Jewish people by symbolically casting their wickedness and moral failures onto the sinless lambs. By offering these sacrifices to the Hebrew god, Yahweh, the Jewish people hoped to atone, in part, for their insufficiencies and to restore their special relationship to the Creator.
In Christian theology, this symbolism came to even greater prominence when Jesus of Nazareth was executed on the day before the Passover Sabbath, on the very day when the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the Temple, and was said to rise from the dead three days later on the first Easter Sunday. Christians believe that Jesus was the incarnation of the Creator God who was willingly born as a human being in order to experience human suffering and to offer his life as the ultimate sinless sacrifice to atone for both individual and collective human sin once and for all: the proverbial Lamb of God.
AGER THE SUFFERING CHRIST-FIGURE
(Paul Newman suffers for his friends in Cool Hand Luke)
Regardless of whether artists, musicians, filmmakers, or writers identified as Christians, the archetype of the innocent, suffering servant – a heroic figure whose death or humiliation are willingly offered as a sacrifice towards the improvement of their community’s greater good – became wildly popular in Western culture following the proliferation of Christianity.
To this day, Christ-figures abound in films and fiction where they are often innocent or unassuming figures who sacrifice themselves for the greater good in an often shockingly brutal or public death. Literary Christ-figures often share traits with Jesus of Nazareth:
…they die or are humiliated with outstretched arms (especially in movies, where the symbolism is even more obvious) (cf. Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea, Doctor Who, Ellen Ripley in Alien 3, etc. Indeed, many of the examples listed below do this…),
…are assassinated or executed in public (cf. Mufasa in The Lion King, William Wallace in Braveheart, Aslan in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe),
…are populist figures resented by the political establishment (cf. Jim Casy in The Grapes of Wrath or Lucus Jackson in Cool Hand Luke),
…have the initials “J.C.” (cf. Jim Conklin in The Red Badge of Courage, John Connor in The Terminator, or John Coffey in The Green Mile),
…sacrifice their lives for the lives, freedom, or dignity of loved ones (cf. Leonidas in 300, Spock in Wrath of Khan, the eponymous heroine of Nausicaa, Sydney Carton in A Tale of Two Cities),
…bring Promethean gifts of wisdom or technology to the masses, for which they are often killed (cf. Superman, E.T., The Iron Giant, Klaatu in The Day the Earth Stood Still, or Simon in The Lord of the Flies),
…are deemed to be chosen or set apart to save their people (cf. Neo from The Matrix, Frodo in The Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter),
…or accept an unjust death sentence with grace, often in order to save lives or redeem their community (cf. John Proctor in The Crucible, the eponymous hero of Billy Budd)
We should note that several of these traits could be applied to Ager (who even appears stretched out, as on a crucifix, protecting the reburied crown), the willing sacrifice who gives his life that his community should remain unmolested and free from occupation. The same cannot be said of Paxton.
Returning to the story proper, allow me to copy the paragraph that contains the solitary reference to the Paschal season to show it within its full context. It follows the famous section where Paxton finishes telling his woeful story to the narrator and Long, before collapsing into desperate tears (with the bitter refrain “And even if I do get it put back, he won't forgive me: I can tell that. And I was so happy a fortnight ago”):
“We didn't know what to say, but we felt we must come to the rescue somehow, and so--it really seemed the only thing--we said if he was so set on putting the crown back in its place, we would help him. And I must say that after what we had heard it did seem the right thing. If these horrid consequences had come on this poor man, might there not really be something in the original idea of the crown having some curious power bound up with it, to guard the coast? At least, that was my feeling, and I think it was Long's too. Our offer was very welcome to Paxton, anyhow. When could we do it? It was nearing half-past ten. Could we contrive to make a late walk plausible to the hotel people that very night? We looked out of the window: there was a brilliant full moon--the Paschal moon.”
James – an expert in both the literary criticism of the Bible and in Old Testament theology in particular – does not underscore this coincidence by accident or whim. One might easily imagine him looking up coldly from his manuscript, making knowing eye contact with his audience after emphasizing the words “the Paschal moon,” perhaps in a sadly, bitter tone. His classically educated listeners would have immediately drunk in the significance of the words and realized that – unlike Parkins in “Oh, Whistle” – there would be no second chance for this doomed transgressor.
Especially as this reference follows so closely on the heels of Paxton’s own comment about his inability to receive forgiveness, this is a particularly sinister reference for Paxton, since the main symbol of Passover is the scapegoated lamb which is sacrificed for the greater good.
In the New Testament Gospel of John the Jewish high priest paints Jesus in a similar manner, chiding his subordinates for worrying about Jesus’ growing influence by saying: ““You know nothing at all! You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.” (John 11:50)
RITES OF REDEMPTION:
AGER THE MARTYR DISCIPLES PAXTON
INTO ACCEPTING HIS PENITENT SELF-SACRIFICE
(One of my favorite, menacing stills from
The same could be said of Paxton, who seems poised to be the human sacrifice which will be made for the sake of his country’s peace and security. The difference between Paxton and the Passover lamb/sacrificial Christ is that he is not exactly innocent: he has sinned against his nation and its people, but he can save both his community and his soul by returning the crown to its hiding place in the land which it is meant to defend, and by sealing it with his own blood.
And he knows this: when discussing his future with his nurturing mentors, he shakes off their encouragement: “'You've nothing to trouble yourselves about,' he said, 'but I'm not forgiven. I've got to pay for that miserable sacrilege still. I know what you are going to say. The Church might help. Yes, but it's the body that has to suffer...”
Like a true Paschal lamb and Christ-figure, Ager offered up his life as a free gift to his country: out of love, not of penance. Although he was too ill to serve in the military, he stands in as a symbol of Britain’s slaughtered young men, a willing martyr who lived out Christ’s own words that “greater love has no man than this: than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”
In the end, Ager’s death is a gift of love to his country, though clearly his anxious spirit bemoans, like the American patriot Nathan Hale, that he “only [had] one life to give for his country.” In the afterlife, he remains at his post like a protective sentinel, and when Paxton – a living, healthy man who truly does not appear to have enlisted or otherwise served his country – has the audacity to violate his post out of no nobler purpose than mere, vain curiosity, he becomes determined to teach the living man a lesson in the cost of treason.
Paxton suggests that while his soul may be forgiven by God, his body must suffer the punishment which Ager has planned for it. In a twisted way, Ager plays the Christ to Paxton’s penitent: just as Christ suffered a willing martyrdom in order to redeem the sins of humanity, and famously charged his followers that: “if anyone would follow me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me,” so too Ager leads the way – literally and figuratively – for Paxton to receive absolution, with Paxton dutifully following Ager – his brutal savior – to the place of execution. Indeed, he will need to be sacrificed to atone for his sins.
Indeed, his death is deeply ritualized and intentionally posed: laid low at the foot of a historical defense fortification – which serves as a national altar of sacrifice – with his mouth brutally gagged with sand and stones (the very earth of his homeland), leaving his teeth and jaws splintered, symbolically gagging him to prevent him from ever sharing the location of the crown.
These sorts of brutal executions have been common throughout history, especially from crimes of treachery. In pre-modern Europe, an assassin could have his stabbing hand chopped off before being hanged, and a heretic or rabble-rouser could have their tongue pulled by the roots for speaking ill of the authorities.
In more modern times, these sorts of symbolic deaths are found in the practices of crime bosses, secret societies, and criminal syndicates, who are extremely brutal in their treatment of snitches and traitors. Victims of mobsters who were killed for informing are often found with their eyes gouged out and tongues removed – among many humiliating variations intended to send a message about snitching.
Of course, Jesus himself was executed as a political rebel, between two convicted traitors. Until recently (in terms of 2000 years of tradition), the two convicts crucified on either side of Jesus were called “thieves” in most English translations, but the Greek word “kakourgōn” – which simply means “criminal” or “malefactor” – has begun to be read as meaning “rebel,” and the two crucified men on either side of him are now often considered colleagues of Barabbas, the Jewish freedom fighter (or terrorist, if you were a Roman) whose life was spared in favor of Jesus’.
His death, like Paxton’s, was public, painful, and humiliating, and, like Paxton, came with a symbolic message. While Paxton’s mouth is filled with stones and sand to act out his being gagged, Jesus was emblematically crowned with thorns (a parody of laurels) to mock his supposed pretentions to overthrow the Roman government, and he was paraded about in an imperial robe following his brutal flogging just before his execution.
Likewise, Paxton’s execution is done symbolically: he is seeming murdered by the very land which he has betrayed, as the elements themselves conspire against him: the wind itself blows the mist in from the sea (water), and he is broken and smothered by the earth of his affronted homeland.
Ultimately, “A Warning to the Curious” is about the cost of maintaining a community. It details the deaths of two young men from the same generation who die for different reasons in order to preserve their national stability: Ager, who dies for his country out of devotion to his family’s duty to guard the crown, and Paxton, who betrays Ager’s secret, but repents, restores it to its resting place, and then willingly goes to his place of execution to become a sacrificial lamb for his people.
The only ones left to ponder his choices and fate are the narrator and Henry Long, but Long dies not long after, and only the narrator remains, giving the story its final haunting lines: “Paxton was so totally without connections that all the inquiries that were subsequently made ended in a No Thoroughfare [viz. “Dead End”]. And I have never been at Seaburgh, or even near it, since.” The land has reclaimed both the crown and Paxton, and the narrator’s voice seems to be drowned out by the howling winds rushing over the North Sea, as even his face is finally swallowed up in mist.
As in both the Jewish and Christian festivals, the supernatural powers which have been offended by an act of petulant rebellion have been satiated by the shedding of innocent or willing blood: Yahweh by the symbolic offering of the Passover Lamb, the Triune God by the atoning sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, and William Ager by the brutal, public execution of Paxton.
Like Christ, Ager acts as a model of sacrifice, leading him to his own soul-cleansing martyrdom. Regardless of whether Paxton went knowingly to his death, he did know that it was coming, and with his death – and, soon after, poor Long’s, followed, perhaps not long after, by the depressed narrator’s – the resting place of the Saxon crown is once again a holy secret. Until another blighter digs it up, starting the bloody cycle of guilt, repentance, sacrifice, and sanctification all over again…