The Living Stone: Stories of Uncanny Sculpture, 1858–1948 edited by Henry Bartholomew

(Handheld Press, 2023)

Reviewed by Andy Sawyer

Sculpture is inherently uncanny; the creation of simulacra of human (and other) form, enigmatic and often loaded (says Henry Bartholomew in his introduction) with destabilising fears of otherness. Sabine Baring-Gould’s “Master Sacristan Eberhart” (significantly subtitled “not quite a ghost story”) is an interesting start to this selection. The Sacristan’s reflection, after a statue of a monk has foiled a robbery, warns against what we are so often doing—seeing in these stories and their subjects “reflections of our own selves, our feelings and passions” instead of their artistic truth which might cause us to direct attention away from our selves. It might be argued that Eberhart, in his strange “friendship” with the statue he calls Father Simon, has fallen into precisely that trap!

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Review from BSFA Review 23 - Download your copy here.