A new adaptation of an M. R. James work will not be shown on the BBC this Christmas. Still, nothing stops you from reading the “greatest ghost story writer,” Alexander Larman writes in The Critic:

“It is a particularly sad omission that, this year, there is no space to be found in the TV listings for a new M R James adaptation. Thanks to the actor, writer and director Mark Gatiss, a tireless admirer of James, there have been several BBC films based on his work in recent years. These have included last year’s sinister Martin’s Close, starring Peter Capaldi and written and directed by Gatiss, and 2013’s The Tractate Middoth, to say nothing of such James-inspired supernatural dramas as 2018’s The Dead Room. The late evening Christmas slot is ideal for a version of one of James’s stories, as the best examples manage to frighten and intrigue a captive audience. One can only hope that there will, at least, be a repeat somewhere.

“James himself is rightly regarded as probably the greatest of all English ghost story writers, along with such masters of the genre as EF Benson, Algernon Blackwood and the perennially underrated AM Burrage, as well as an enormous influence on Susan Hill, whose Woman in Black can justly be ranked alongside its predecessors’ work.

“As a man, James was as old-fashioned and conservative as many of the unfortunate protagonists of his stories: he was firstly a don at King’s College, Cambridge, long before it became a byword for liberalism, and director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, before becoming Provost of Eton in 1918, in which post he remained until his death in 1936.

“Many of his tales originated from being read to favoured students or pupils around his study fire in the winter, or from told as Christmas Eve entertainments for his friends. Although not all of them followed the same formula, there were several ingredients that can be regarded as quintessentially ‘Jamesian’, and which constitute the archetypal festive ghost story.”

In other news: Elon Musk has moved to Texas. He explains why in an interview with Matt Murray (which also includes his thoughts on how governments can help entrepreneurs (stay out of it) and why CEOs should have fewer meetings and spend less time reading spreadsheets).

According to The Guardian, the Tolkien Society has expressed concerns that Christians involved in the effort to buy J.R.R. Tolkien’s Oxford home placed too much emphasis on his faith in plans for the house, among other things: “On Tuesday, long-running charity the Tolkien Society publicly announced it would not support the project, citing its concerns that, among others, no Tolkien experts were serving as directors, that the building would not be open to the public, and that the plan they had seen ‘includes spiritual retreats’.”

I spent the entire fifth grade breakdancing in black parachute pants, so I am happy to report that it will be an Olympic sport starting in 2024.

Monolith mania: “The statues have so far appeared in Germany, Spain, the Netherlands, Colombia, California, Las Vegas, New Mexico, and the Isle Of Wight.”

Bad sex award canceled: “The prize was set up in 1993 by Auberon Waugh, with the intention of ‘gently dissuading authors and publishers from including unconvincing, perfunctory, embarrassing or redundant passages of a sexual nature in otherwise sound literary novels’ . . . The award’s judges said they took the decision because they felt ‘the public had been subjected to too many bad things this year to justify exposing it to bad sex as well’. Fewer books were published this year because of the coronavirus, and this was likely to have been a factor, too.”

Sebastian Smee and Peggy McGlone explain how the Baltimore Museum of Art’s attempt to “raise $65 million for diversity and equity efforts by selling three paintings” failed: “Framed as a response to the summer-long Black Lives Matter protests, Bedford’s idea was approved by the museum’s board of trustees. Sotheby’s was tapped to handle a private sale of the Warhol and to auction works by Brice Marden (‘3’) and Clyfford Still (‘1957-G’) on Oct. 28. But the masterpieces didn’t make it to the auction block. With hours to spare, the BMA rescinded the entire plan, capitulating to a firestorm of criticism that had sparked internal board squabbles and resignations and the withdrawal of tens of millions of dollars in promised gifts and artwork. The dramatic turnaround sent shock waves through the field and highlighted the fraught nature of ‘de-accessions,’ the term for selling works from a museum collection.” I think Christopher Bedford should be dismissed.

Michelle Taylor reads T. S. Eliot’s letters to Emily Hale and argues that she was his “muse”: “Eliot’s dissociation from his earlier self—from the man who wrote to Hale passionately, almost daily, for nearly two decades—epitomizes the strange swerves between intimacy and detachment that characterize his side of their long and fraught relationship. The real subject of Eliot’s statement isn’t love but poetry. “Emily Hale would have killed the poet in me,” he insists. By attempting to renege on the undying love he had promised Hale, Eliot also hopes to revoke a more complex vow, one that these letters keep: the promise of a poet to his muse. There is no way to say whether marrying Hale would have destroyed Eliot’s art. What reading his letters makes clear, however, is that the deferral of his desire—the ascetic refusal to make his most enduring love ever truly complete—was what sustained it.”  I haven’t read the letters yet, but color me unconvinced. Attempts like this to pinpoint the single source of a work of art, or a body of work, make for good copy but often offer an overly simplistic account of one of the most nebulous things on this planet: the motive for metaphor, as Wallace Stevens put it.

“Emmanuel Carrère’s latest novel, Yoga, has stoked debate in France after the author’s ex-wife, Hélène Devynck, accused him of writing about her without her consent.” Laura Cappelle reports.

Photo: Strasbourg