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Study 031 - Meeting Mr. Millar (Patreon)

Published:
2023-02-16 14:29:06
Imported:
2026-06
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We're confused and frightened as we discuss Robert Aickman's short story Meeting Mr. Millar. Tune in and help us solve the mystery!

Special thanks to reader Greig Johnson! Grab something from his Etsy page now!

Next up: an Extra Credit episode on the Japanese film Attack of the Mushroom People (otherwise known as Matango), and a final Aickman horror tale: The Trains!

Comments

Robert Curtin

Two Roberts and a Bob and none of them were me! I'm with Sean(Shawn/Shaun) and his absurdly long name! Down with the Nerd Poker! Absolutely kidding, you guys are the best, and I really appreciate you guys taking the time to thank supporters and how you engage with them. Really enjoyed this episode, and I really can't get enough of Aickman and his ability to just creep you the hell out without showing or really telling you anything. Very glad you guys have been covering him this month!

Jason Thompson

I haven’t actually read the story, but is this a nightmare vision of adult life? Just empty busywork punctuated by men abusing women?

Camshaft

Maybe it’s because ran across a discarded chrysalis yesterday from one of the butterflies I raised last fall, but the papery, swaying “body” of Mr. Millar just made me think, “Oh, great, now the sex vampire has WINGS.”

Richard Horsman

My take on the man in the green suit is that he was a tout or a pimp. He was trusted to acquire victims for Millar. During the day, when he’s banging around, he’s collecting valuables and/or disposing of evidence. Also I think he’s done this before, either for Millar or someone else like him. I make this assumption based on how blasé he is about “them” showing up. Like he’s seen it all before. As far as who hanged Millar: I think it was ghosts or whatever else was the source of the “graveyard smell”. Maybe they hollowed him out too.

Mark Simmons

What a cool, creepy puzzle story! Ever since you drew the Michael Shea connection, I couldn't help having the recurring thought "Yep, clearly dealing with a Shoggoth Lord here."

Rob_Hellfire_Graves (Cult organ donor, wrestler, poet & Satanic Reverend)

I'm sure I read somewhere that the narrator's job of editing erotica was one of Aickman's real life early jobs after leaving education before he became a respectable civil service conservationist on the canals. Thought I can't find where I read this now. So I've always interpreted this story as quite autobiographical. The narrator has to adjust to sleaziness of this cheap neighborhood and his unusual job but keeps trying to run back to the safety of his mother's house. Mr Miller and his cohort are perhaps inspired my real life gangsters and pimps Aickman ran across in his youth. The type of people use others up until they are hollow, sounds like vampires to me. Is some way I think everyone in the building could be views as vampiric, The Narrator profits from re-working other writing. The married woman seemingly thrust herself upon him but will give him no emotion or promise to the affair and the company that mostly employs immigrants... well some comment that I don't personally agree with could be made there! There's a section where he says that 5 times women came screaming to his door trying to escape Mr Millar, not really wanting to get involved he just walks them to the street. Is this slightly callous attitude a sign of the weariness of adult life grinding him down, no one in this neighborhood has much respect for women and it's rubbing off on him. In a nutshell it seems to be about coming to terms with adult life, everyone wants a piece of you and soon you'll be no better than them. If your temped to tell Aickman month run into March there are a bunch other 'Vampire' stories you could cover, though of course in Aickman style they never say the word vampire. -"Pages from a Young Girl's Journal" is his re-imagining of Carmilla. -I would also call "The Strangers", "No Time Is Passing" & "The Visiting Star" vampire stories. Which are all great. Really enjoying this month and can't wait to hear "The Trains" it's one on my favorites. I hope one day you can do "The Next Glade" as that my number one best Aickman story.

Lane Mullin

I am so appreciative of these shows.

Markus Lauerer

Aickman is one of those writers that make you want to quit trying your hand at writing altogether. I mean my God, what a master.

Jason Thompson

Aickman and David Lynch have a real affinity. Like Thomas Ligotti and Charlie Kaufman.

Long time hater

I had a similar read to camshaft; more a sense of the responsible entity as a parasite controlling the host (like a supernatural zombie fungus) to harvest the trauma/ruin it feeds on before abandoning the hollowed out shell of the host (more like parasitic wasps)

Jim Cannon

I run hot and cold on Aickman. The lichen story was pretty good, but at least there the POV character took part in the actual story. Here, where Roy is tertiary at best to the main action, it just doesn't work as cosmic horror or strangeness at all for me. It sounds like another privileged white guy (who just happens to have a Friends-like apartment AND a no-strings-attached sexual relationship) being inconvenienced by noisy neighbors and terrified by a hobo dossing in the stairwell one night. Like, he doesn't even have to pay out of pocket to stay in a hotel when it gets rowdy and busy, he just goes to his mum's. What terror! I think this is a literary conceit that can work, sometimes, but usually when the main story is already familiar. Gregory Maguire made his bones on stuff like this, for good or ill, right? Like a story about Crawford Tilllinghast's next door neighbor, or Henry Clervall's years at medical school. But this story specifically - this would work better from the POV of one of the women pulled into Millar's circle, or someone else working for him, or even the porkpie hat guy, if he is actually a detective. Too far removed, the "eerie" just becomes commonplace.

Cacodaemoniacal

Sometimes, reading Aickman is like playing a card game with at least 3 completely different decks of cards...and at least one Uno Reversi mixed in. And somehow, it all works. The person of hollowed out privilege can't make that privilege (or his talent) work for him because of lack of money and the coarsening of society (editing porn, that makes money). He is sort of paddling in place, only able to go backwards to his Mumsy. The building has a hollowed out space in it, Mr. Miller leaves a hollowed out chrysalis, and the main character is doing the same to the husband who is hollowed out by his life and wife. Then there is how and by what those spaces become filled.

Michael Littlefield

YAY! I FINALLY WON NERD LOTTERY! This was a really interesting story and it was one where ]

Doc Singles

I’m grateful to Chad and Chris for reading difficult stories that I don’t have the spoons to slog through. I get very frustrated navigating through reams of flowery prose that hint, imply, and allude to something without ever saying anything! When confronted with one of these, I am constantly grasping for threads and groping for some meaningful narrative. When I get to the end of the story I wonder, “what the hell was that?” and “why did I do that to myself?”. If you ever want to feel this kind of frustration ten-fold, read All Hallows Eve by the Inkling Charles Williams, a supernatural horror story I had to read with my finger. I could never have enjoyed The Turn of the Screw by Henry James without this podcast! With the exception of The Hospice, which was revealed by commenter “FB” to be about a nursing home in Comments episode #43, Robert Aickman stories often do this to me. There are disturbing occurrences, unsettling incidents, atmospheres full of menace, and endings with no pay-off! I work so hard but remain confused. Where are the story threads? Is this bit misdirection? Is this part germane to the story or is it only there for ambience? Am I supposed to finish your story for you, Robert Aickman?? This style of storytelling puts me in mind of Zen stories and koans (a koan is a Zen riddle, such as the sound of one hand clapping). Zen stories have nonsensical or paradoxical endings meant to foster contemplation, and by pondering them you learn about your own nature and (hopefully) become more self-aware. A great example of a spooky Zen story is this children’s book called Zen Ghosts (a Stillwater and Friends Book) by Jon J. Muth. Thank you, Chad and Chris, for putting in the hard work so I don’t have to!

Terrence-John Ruckendorfer

Just checked back in after a couple of years away. Lots of episodes to catch up on. I missed listening to you guys.

Jeffrey Kahrs

I agree about the cheating. I love outlander but feel so sorry for Frank who gets a really raw deal

Michael Cunliffe

Another great story that exemplifies that Strange nature you cover so well. Looking forward to the rest of Stains, Trains and Automobiles next week.

Eric Sroka

I’ve got a copy of cold hand in mine, but I don’t think I’ve read this one. It’s packed away in a box right now, which is typical. I’ll have to dig it out so I can read this. I’m really digging Aickman.

Cacodaemoniacal

I think I unconsciously discarded the beginning of the story because it sounded like the usual reasons for writing it down--an impending doom or death. However I came upon another thread floating in the back of my mind--the MC's inability to complain to anyone. To have regress against the changes being made in his life or world. He hints he might have amnesia. He has to write it down because he can't speak about it because he's a Twentieth Century Man (employ mental reverb). this sort of fits with the theme of a hollowing out that runs through the story. But also with how noone talks to each other in any sort of meaningful way. The people seem to abut each other rather than interact.

Nic Wassell

The description of the newspaper that has more people working there than the business could sustain reminds me of a place near where I used to live on Old Kent Road in London, which despite the large sign of LETTINGS above the door, didn't have any display of properties and instead the only things displayed in the window were assorted power tools. Not boxed ones for sale either - just random power tools that looked like they'd been taken out from someone's shed and put behind the glass. In the ten years or so we lived there and going past it nearly every day, I never saw a single person enter who looked like they were going to buy something or engage a professional service. So maybe a front for something? But it didn't really feel like that either - no activity of people going in and out or anything suspicious. Just a couple of people inside usually seemingly doing nothing but opening and closing, having a chat, and presumably dusting the power tools. One of the 'T's in the sign fell off at some point never to be replaced, rechristening the business "Le Tings" which felt no less appropriate. Eventually some time after we moved away it must have changed hands as the next time I went by several months later it was some kind of very basic sandwich shop - just a fridge unit and a counter. I can't remember if the power tools were still in the window - I like to think they were.

Z.A. Kahan

Definitely the weirdest episode of Tasting History.

Tomas Rawlings

Interesting to note that the Freedom political press is an actual place in London, that still publishes Anarchism based literature and a newspaper. The building they were in was gifted to them by a supporter as I understand it.