Tag Archives: gothic

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill

I guess scary books just don’t scare me.

The Woman in Black tells the tale of Arthur Kipps, a young solicitor who has been sent to the north of England to tidy up the affairs of old Mrs. Drablow.  Despite warnings from all the townsfolk that Mrs. Drablow’s house is haunted, the fool decides to spend the night.  Terrible things ensue.  The book inspired a movie starring Daniel Radcliffe that is a scary, scary movie that I never want to see.

The book, however … reminds me of the limitations of the print medium.  Books don’t do jump scares very well.  Sure, the apparition of the woman with the wasted face would have been pants-soilingly scary to Arthur Kipps, but for me the reader the filter of words has taken away most of the terror.  It read more like a delicious neo-Victorian novel.  I luxuriated in the descriptions of social class, the autumn winds over the British moors, and above all the long sentences with multiple dependent clauses.

To me, scary movies are way scarier than scary books.  The Turn of the Screw?  Eh.  Rosemary’s Baby?  Beloved?  Didn’t faze me.  But if I ever see a weeping angel in a dark alley oh god oh god oh god…

Plucker, by Brom

Sick and twisted Toy Story.

I do have to start off with one nitpick.  The author of this book is primarily a visual artist, and it shows in the text.  But… just wait till I tell you how this goes.  A boogeyman from Africa has gotten into this little kids’ room.  It’s picking off his toys one by one and eating their eyeballs, and when it’s done, it’s going to steal the kids’ soul.  Lucky for them, the housekeeper moonlights as a voodoo priestess.  She takes Jack in the Box (our hero), sews a snake heart into him, and sets him off on a mission of bloody vengeance.  How cool is that?

The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield

A reclusive, bestselling author commissions our heroine to write her biography.  The two women come to loggerheads about how the story should be told almost immediately.  Margaret, the biographer (no relation to me) thinks there is more to Vida Winter than meets the eye and is determined to get to the root of the mystery whether Winter likes it or not.   What is Winter’s real name?  Where did she come from?  And where is the thirteenth tale, Winter’s fabled short story that was never published?

The first thing you will notice on starting to read this book is the Gothic use of language.  Margaret is a moody and shy lady who spends almost all of her time working in a bookshop.  A couple of pages into the book, Margaret takes a couple of paragraphs to describe a billboard by the road.  What is this? I thought.  Is Setterfield trying to write a twenty-first-century Jane Eyre here?

The answer is yes.  Big, old British mansions abound in this book, alongside ghosts, storms, madness, intrigues with the servants, illegitimate children, and, of course, a fire.  The Thirteenth Tale is an homage to the greats of the nineteenth century, which it references throughout the text.  Vida Winter’s favorite book is Jane Eyre.

That ultimately causes The Thirteenth Tale some problems.  It’s a good story, with a nice mystery and a satisfying surprise at the end.  But when you position yourself that close to Jane Eyre, how can you possibly measure up?

Isis

A chilling retelling of the story of Isis and Osiris, set in Victorian England.

The book is written as if it were a Victorian novel, but with wisps of modern sensibility stealing in here and there.  Iris Villiers is a Gothic heroine with a touch of supernatural power who spends her days trapped on the ancestral estate with nothing to do.   When her beloved brother Harvey dies from falling out a window, she’s willing to pay any price to bring him back from the dead.

You might want to stop reading at the end of chapter seven and pretend that chapter eight doesn’t exist.  Left there, it’s a bittersweet tale of life and death.  The real ending is tragic.  It also wins a prize for scariest use of a locked container ever.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Uncle Silas

When Miss Maud Ruthyn, heiress, is orphaned, she’s sent to live with her creepy old uncle until she reaches her majority. Said uncle is suspected of once murdering a man to whom he owed gambling debts. Oh, and if Maud were to die somehow before becoming an adult, Uncle Silas would get everything. Her father arranged it that way in his will to prove to the world that Silas isn’t a murderer. Maud gets the delightful experience of being the pork chop dangled in front of the starving wolf.

Deliciously gothicky, but there’s still plenty wrong with this novel by J. Sheridan le Fanu (better known for his short stories). For one thing, scary it ain’t. “And … there was a bloodstain … on the floor!” is about as intense as it gets. Did the Victorians scare easier than we do, or did the authors just hold themselves back? It’s a depressing prospect to think that we live in a scarier world than in 1899, but compared to Chernobyl, Silas’s murderous history is pretty tame.

Ah, Maud Ruthyn. How I love to hate her. Throughout the book she vacillates between a fainting flower petal and an imperious little brat who knows she’s better than the menials because of her education and good breeding. I know she would have made for an acceptable heroine in the 19th century, but cultural relativism can only be carried so far. I’m still allowed to be upset when she’s denigrating her own gender (The weaker sex? The weaker sex? I do beg your pardon?), failing to play an active role in the ending, or eerily echoing Robinson Crusoe:

‘I want your hand, cousin,’ she said, at the same time taking it by the wrist, and administering with it a sudden slap on her plump cheek, which made the room ring, and my fingers tingle; and before I had recovered from my surprise, she had vanished.

And if you were expecting a twist at the end, which would be reasonable to do in such a suspenseful novel, you will be disappointed. Le Fanu tells you over and over that a certain event is going to happen. And then it happens.

Now that I’ve told you everything that’s wrong with the book, I strongly urge you to go read it. If you’re the sort of person who read Frankenstein for fun, not for English class, you will love it. The point of Uncle Silas is the mood, not its illiberal characters or preposterous plot. The haunted house of Bartram-Haugh abounds with creaky rooms, opium addiction, gypsy prophecies, and … Swedenborgians. Le Fanu is a master of suspense. Just as soon as you’re dying to know what happens next, he slows the story down. He draws out each excruciating moment as the massive conspiracy surrounding Maud closes in on her. I read the last five chapters all at a gulp (nearly making myself late for work) and finished gasping for air. It was only about an hour later that I realized nothing particularly cool happened. Le Fanu just writes it so well. Definitely recommended for any fan of the Gothic style.

I’ve Got 95 Theses and the Pope Ain’t One


Just check out that architecture in the background!

www.95thesesrap.com

Also, I saw a play called The Living the other day. I reviewed it on an official blog I write for for Carleton, and since the review’s in keeping with the book review theme of this blog, I thought I’d post a link to it here: The Living