Haunted Hamilton

Reading this shortly before Halloween was a coincidence. I‰ЫЄm not a horror fan. I read this more for the local history than the ghost stories. Most of the stories are in the form of legends or first-person accounts that might as well have been completely made up – more like newspaper articles than the properly-sourced writing I‰ЫЄm used to. Although, the stories I enjoyed the most were those that actually had sources other than the Haunted Hamilton website, like articles from the Spectator rather than hearsay from unnamed individuals. Far too many Wikipedia citations! The writing was not bad but the book was poorly edited (‰ЫПthe reporter bemused that ‰Ы_‰Ыќ).

I would have liked to see the author take a bit more of a personal approach to the stories, like describing his conversations with people who had these experiences or told these stories (as he did a bit in the last chapter). It would have been interesting to hear the ghost stories more from the storytellers themselves than from a third party, I guess.

The author made a couple of references to ghost stories as metaphors rather than actual things that happened, and I appreciate the idea that paranormal experiences are representations of the past within the imagination, triggered particularly in places which physically give the impression of previous life and subsequent abandonment and neglect. Of course something terrible happened there; otherwise why does no one live or work in these places anymore? I like this way of thinking about ghost stories. I have no patience for things like orbs and EVP. I have my own irrational fears of dark and unknown places, usually related to insects and wild animals instead of spirits. I have had my own experiences that I know some people would interpret as paranormal. (Just last week I was sitting in a meeting and during a conversation that didn‰ЫЄt involve me I could have sworn someone said my name loudly, almost right in my ear, but when I looked around everyone was carrying on the same and no one had said anything to me. Not like seeing a ghost but.) Our senses can and do deceive us, and as far as I‰ЫЄm concerned the likelihood that these experiences are caused by spirits from another world, rather than by our own brains, are little to none. But I can‰ЫЄt deny the power of ghosts, monsters, aliens, etc. as metaphors for important and meaningful aspects of our lives.

In any case, I appreciate that the author did not commit himself entirely to having paranormal beliefs, but served as the medium for sharing them, and focused so much on the history. In some ways it seems that the deeper interest (as it was for me) was in the strange and fantastic aspects of our city‰ЫЄs history, but it was overpowered by the popular interest in the paranormal. I‰ЫЄm looking forward to taking a closer look at the suggested reading.