“The Asian Shore” (1970)

With short stories generally, and with horror stories specifically, it can sometimes seem like a long time between good ones. This long story by Thomas M. Disch is a good one. It appears in The Dark Descent, where editor David G. Hartwell argues for it as horror versus science fiction—it was published originally in a science fiction magazine. Yes, correct. I don’t see how this could remotely be considered SF, but it is a great story of dread and perhaps the best doppelganger story I’ve seen yet. A man whose marriage is ending moves to a remote part of Turkey, at a threshold across a river from the Asian shore. He is there ostensibly to study architecture, but he doesn’t seem to be studying very hard though he is obviously erudite and knowledgeable. He notices a woman following him around when he’s out. She comes to his door in the evenings, knocking on it, tapping the windows, calling the name Yavuz. He often sees her around the city and tries to avoid her. He also sees a young boy in many places, sometimes with the woman. He takes pictures when he is out, he’s there to study architecture, remember, but when he has them developed he is given photos he did not take. The woman and the boy are in them. It appears our academic is somehow being slowly swallowed into another life. It is happening beyond his control, and though he is bewildered he seems to accept it, even to embrace it. The story is well-told, beautiful and mysterious, taking its time but never less than interesting. On the internet I found people articulating theories of science fiction for it—fair enough, focusing on clues about various arbitrary constraints. But I think it is more effectively taken as an unexplainable doppelganger tale, which is mostly a precinct of horror as Hartwell argues. It’s also the best part of the story for me, the sense that our man is somehow being absorbed by his doppelganger. My complaint about many of this type of story—e.g., Edgar Allan Poe’s “William Wilson”—is I don’t entirely understand where the anxieties come from. Someone looks like you or has your name—what of it? Do you know how many Jeff Pikes there are out there? Perhaps my imagination has been stunted in this realm. I don’t particularly feel it. What may be working best for me in this story is the isolated and extremely foreign setting, which Disch leans into hard. Our guy is comfortable with other languages, but not Turkish—he explains why with technical linguistic terms. He had me at Turkish. Already I could feel the isolation and alienation. I have never been anywhere where English is not spoken, partly for fear of being unable to communicate, a key aspect of this story. The appearances and reappearances of the woman and the boy work here. Again, this story is really told well, building to its climax with great skill.

The Dark Descent, ed. David G. Hartwell
Story not available online.