"Ghosts haunt cities, seeking revenge for the disappeared past"

December 2, 2023 6:27 AM

The Haunted City is an essay by Azania Imtiaz Khatri-Patel about the ghosts who haunt modern life, concentrating on London, Mumbai and Japan. Meanwhile Andrew Kipnis' essay The Haunting of Modern China focuses on the ghosts of urban China, and the living's changing relationships with the dead.
posted by Kattullus (5 comments total)

Sounds very interesting! I've favorited and look forward to reading. Thank you for posting!
posted by overglow at 9:16 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I enjoy that based on the post text alone I have no idea if this is about real or metaphorical ghosts. I'll go read now and find out.
posted by Wretch729 at 10:05 AM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

Wow, I loved both of these essays. Intriguing writing and lots to think about. Thanks for posting!
posted by kittensyay at 2:38 PM on December 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think it’s interesting that both writers express surprise that there would be ghosts in cities, but we make ghosts just by living. In rural areas, the ghosts are familiar; the product of long communal memory, and they express communal anxieties (or the ghosts (heh) of past anxieties). In cities, by contrast, the ghosts are more likely to be strange — my apartment is about 100 years old; there’s a decent chance someone has died in the building. If they left a ghost, how would I recognize it, much less propitiate it?

This reminds me of a couple I knew years ago who bought a house. The previous owner had not cleaned out the garage. While they were doing the job, they discovered a box. With a jar. Full of ashes. The previous owner had abandoned his grandmother’s remains. Fast forward to their first Christmas. Feeling vaguely uncomfortable about the jar in the garage, they brought it in and set it on the mantle, surrounded by fir boughs and candles, to luxuriate in warmth and light in the dark of the year. So doing, they made a potential ghost and adopted ancestor in their new home. I have no idea what the old lady made of it, but she didn’t start a ruckus.
posted by GenjiandProust at 2:47 PM on December 2, 2023 [5 favorites]

Reading these articles with a view toward establishing a natural history of ghosts — especially the second article — we might wonder whether what makes for a ghost is simply an isolated death outside the context of an extended family.

Which could lead to speculation that what constitutes a ghost can be passed on within a family without ever manifesting as an independent entity.

I have experiences which make that idea uncomfortably plausible to me.
posted by jamjam at 4:04 AM on December 3, 2023 [2 favorites]