I can’t write this review without mentioning how strange it is to read Dracula in 2021. We have so much foreknowledge of it simply through cultural osI can’t write this review without mentioning how strange it is to read Dracula in 2021. We have so much foreknowledge of it simply through cultural osmosis that we come to the table so far ahead of the clueless characters. It can be frustrating but mostly I just found it comical—every time a character utters the name “Dracula” it’s like you can hear the ominous minor chord on an organ being struck, and when in the beginning Jonathan Harker says stuff like, “Why, this Country Dracula is a rather polite fellow, despite his little oddities!” it almost registers as parody.
As to the book itself, looking at it as much as I can separate it from the spectre it has cast onto pop culture, it’s really rather underwhelming. I suppose that’s inevitable with a book like this, but I feel like even if I knew nothing about vampires or Dracula before reading this, I’d still be disappointed—the book is 10% doing stuff and 90% talking about doing stuff. Most of what happens is painstaking preparation for encounters that last less than a page. Characters have to share information, have discussions on how to proceed, gather supplies, type up their notebooks for ease of reading, find the best geographical route to their destination—all things that are usually omitted in books and movies, and for good reason: they’re very tedious and boring.
We are also told how terrible Count Dracula is much more often than we are shown it; he gets very little airtime for a book that bears his name. The characters’ favourite pastime, apart from warning each other of his craven cruelty, seems to be complimenting each other—everyone in this book with the exception of the villain is so bloody good, so courageous, kind, noble, generous, blah blah blah you get it they’re all perfect. Which makes them very uninteresting. And you can only read so much of them all patting each other on the back before you start rooting for Dracula to swoop in and make Swiss cheese of somebody’s neck, just to shake things up a bit!
Speaking of, it’s a shame how often Stoker pulls back from describing the macabre and grotesque, because he’s really good at it. Lucy’s “true death” scene stands out as a memorable moment, as does the description of the Count’s stormy entrance into England—both are dark, richly detailed passages which evoke the oppressive unease of gothic horror as well as the straightforward frights of modern horror. I think they’re also a big reason I disliked the book overall, as they serve as this grating reminder that Stoker is capable of greatness, he just often chooses to skirt around it.
You have heard, no doubt, of the appalling superstition that prevails in Upper and Lower Styria, in Moravia, Silesia, in Turkish Serbia, in Poland, evYou have heard, no doubt, of the appalling superstition that prevails in Upper and Lower Styria, in Moravia, Silesia, in Turkish Serbia, in Poland, even in Russia; the superstition, so we must call it, of the Vampire.
This was a delight. Atmospheric, sensual, brooding, and wonderfully written, a true gem of Gothic literature. Carmilla manages to retain its spookiness all these decades later, because even though we’ve reached a level of vampire supersaturation in the media that J. Sheridan Le Fanu probably wouldn’t have thought possible, the central horror of the story—inviting someone into your home who is not what they appear to be—is still scary.
This is also a situation where the thin line between wanting someone and wanting to be someone that often exists for gay people is used to great effect.
”I wonder whether you feel as strangely drawn towards me as I do to you...”
There is much discussion about just how gay this novella is, but I’m not interested so much in analysing the exact authorial intent as I am with praising how well the final result has turned out. Carmilla is drawn towards Laura, both out of loneliness and desire, and at the same time she is bound to consume and destroy her. Laura represents both Carmilla’s idealised love interest and the person that she wishes she could be (innocent, mortal, guileless... heterosexual?) and yet knows she can never return to. Finding the woman you most want to be, falling in love with her, destroying her, being destroyed. Psychosexual to the max. The tragic erotic potential of the vampire is fully realised here, despite the relative chasteness of the story itself.
I have to laud Le Fanu’s prose too, because his descriptions—especially of landscapes—are so evocative I could picture them all in my mind with incredible clarity. The writing is wonderful the whole way through, always with a current of unease and feverishness, and even though you’ll see the ending coming from a mile away, getting there is great fun.
Told with all the dreaminess of Borges and all the madness of Poe, Aura is a neat little novella that plays with concepts of time, obsession, and desiTold with all the dreaminess of Borges and all the madness of Poe, Aura is a neat little novella that plays with concepts of time, obsession, and desire. Think "The Circular Ruins" meets "The Fall of the House of Usher." The narrative is remarkably fluid and unsettling, perfectly capturing the sensation of becoming unglued, unmoored.
This bilingual edition features a facing translation—the original Spanish on the verso and Lysander Kemp's English interpretation on the recto. Kemp's translation is solid, from what I could see; any excisions he made were to keep the English and Spanish texts roughly in line on the page and I don't think any meaning was lost. The only weird thing is that in one instance he translates "tres mil" to "four thousand," but then later the original text switches, when referring to the same thing, to "cuatro mil." So it's probably a [sic] situation where Kemp was trying to rectify an error in the original Spanish. Anyway, facing translations are super cool and this is a great piece for it, as it's short and tight and easily readable in both languages, with its arresting second-person present tense.
Right, so there's a lot of places to go with this play, in terms reviewing it. Lots to work with. Because The Pillowman is about a lot of things—rage,Right, so there's a lot of places to go with this play, in terms reviewing it. Lots to work with. Because The Pillowman is about a lot of things—rage, childhood trauma, art, violence, stories, symbolism, the subconscious. But I think I've found something which ties all of those things together, so that's what I'm going to focus on here: surrogacy.
I'm not talking about having a baby for someone, I'm just using it in the general sense of the word—the state of being a surrogate. Being a stand-in for someone else. As humans, more of our lives are spent making people surrogates than we'd like to think. How often do we take our anger out on the people who don't deserve it? How often do we take a liking (or a disliking) to someone because they remind us of someone else? How often do we (even subconsciously) make others the conduit for our pent-up pain over events in the past, over the fucked-up things our parents did and said or over the way we were bullied, how often do we take that simmering rage and, when it finally boils over, direct it not at the people who hurt us but at others quite unconnected with the original act?
Quite often, I think.
If this all sounds more than a bit Freudian to you, I understand. A lot of the concepts explored in this play are certainly of that nature. There's a lot of talk about childhoods and children, and all I could think about was how the act of killing a child is often imbued with such psychological and moral weight because of how the murderer sees his own self in the child, how the act is not, to him, a murder, but a mercy—how he sees himself and he destroys himself, and by doing so he tries to prevent himself from ever having existed at all because he so hates the knot of grief and rage and brokenness he was turned into because of his own childhood.
Not that I'm pardoning child murderers. Although pardoning child murderers is a very real topic in The Pillowman, which is why I brought it up in the first place. So in case you haven't already guessed, you probably shouldn't read this play if you have any especial sensitivity regarding the death or torture of children. Well, I suppose every human person with a soul has this sensitivity, but I guess I just mean that you shouldn't read this if you can't handle that being a main component of the story. This isn't horror, so the intent isn't to frighten or repulse you, but these things certainly happen while Martin McDonagh is spinning a tale as terrible as this one.
Writing is an important motif here, unsurprisingly since the protagonist is a writer and the plot concerns the implications of his stories. But here again we find surrogacy. What is writing but extended symbolism and self-exploration? Sounds masturbatory; probably is. Characters are not always surrogates for real people, sometimes they’re surrogates for ourselves, the parts of ourselves we can’t bear to analyse via classic introspection or therapy—the parts of ourselves who hate our parents, hate ourselves, desire obliteration more than anything—so we extract them and place them into little symbolic people made of words. It’s a dark take on the act of fiction writing and I wonder if Martin McDonagh believes it himself, or if Katurian Katurian is more of a nightmare, where the things we know and understand are horribly darkened and twisted up.
And violence against surrogates even runs through the subtler details of The Pillowman. Consider the tale of the Little Green Pig and the fact that Katurian works for a butcher, something which is only mentioned once in the very first scene. Or the parents in The Little Jesus, how they compare to Katurian and Michal’s parents, and Ariel’s, and what became of all three sets.
Every character in this play is guilty of surrogacy to some degree. The detectives who initially seem so boneheaded and brutish reveal their internal struggles and worldviews through some fantastic dialogue and monologues, and they both have a propensity to channel their anger and grief and unleash it on people who represent those that have hurt or abandoned them.
And maybe the person who creates surrogates is a victim themselves, cycles of abuse and of psychological trauma without outlet. If this sounds unbearably depressing to you, that’s because it is, but the last scene of the play holds some hope in that regard, some light. Not much, little more than a pinprick or the flicker of a candle from a mile away, but it’s enough, I think. The world is dark, McDonagh tells you. So perhaps the candle is just there to emphasise the darkness surrounding it.
I’m being vague about everything because you really should just read this play. (You can do so for free here.) It hits you like a punch in the gut—especially the titular story—but my god is it exceptional. Here’s a perfect balance between the cerebral and the concrete, a story that doesn’t forsake character development for symbolism and meta-fiction, which is philosophical and thought-provoking but also just a great tale. It seems perverse to say I loved The Pillowman, and if you read it you’ll understand why.
Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone over a misunderstanding, only to eventually realise that you both actually have the same views and Have you ever gotten into an argument with someone over a misunderstanding, only to eventually realise that you both actually have the same views and that you've essentially been arguing the same things the whole time, and so you just walk away feeling a little silly?
That's kind of how it feels to read 1984. It's like somebody's shouting things at you that you agree with, true things that you understand and support. "Totalitarianism is bad! War is not the answer! We mustn't let ourselves be duped by the promise of security!" After some time, you get a headache and you want them to stop shouting at you, and you just keep saying, "Yes, I agree with you, I understand what you're saying and I feel the same way... Now, can you please stop shouting?" If the person shouting at you said the same things in a more interesting way, and if they didn't shout them, it would be more effective. But instead they believe so strongly in these things that they think it is their duty to warn others of the coming disaster, and to retroactively tell them that when the world does go to shit, it will be all our fault. And you may agree with them, but you can't very well think over the sound of their shouting.
That's actually exactly what reading 1984 is like. It's an essay, really, and I believe it would make a very good essay if Winston weren't in it and if it were marketed as such, because Orwell is a very good essayist. Just read Such, Such Were the Joys. But Orwell wanted many people to read this, so instead he stuck a few characters in there, gave them names, tossed in a rather flimsy backdrop, and stuck in the essay in the form of his leading man's internal dialogue. Which is silly, because I don't know about you but my internal dialogue isn't very essay-like. It's more like one of those free-form poems that doesn't make any sense, or a recipe for penne vodka. No real person's thoughts are like essays, so the fact that Winston's consistently are feels disingenuous and lazy.
For those that will inevitably tell me that I have to think of this "in the context of when it was written"- save it. Brave New World, published about a decade before 1984, is far more imaginative, well-written, and far, far more "prophetic," to use the word on my copy of 1984's back cover. In Brave New World, it's not some totalitarian government oppressing the innocent. It's the public's wilful ignorance, wilful laziness, wilful indulgence in trivia that causes their own downfall. They're numbed by drugs and happy to toil away. It may be a dystopia, but nobody realises it- or, more frightening still, nobody cares. And what sets Brave New World leagues above 1984 in my mind is that it isn't a scary, warped, power-crazed leader or group wrenching rights away left and right. In fact, the government gave the people exactly what they wanted- peace, leisure, and freedom from troublesome thoughts, arguments, opinions, and discord. Plus, Huxley doesn't shout at you. He has interesting and important points, yes, but he also tells a story, because it is a novel, after all, and that allows for a sort of back and forth between author and reader, rather than being tied to a chair and yelled at for 312 pages.
So if you're of the opinion that we have to fear big, mean, powerful political groups who will take over and enslave us in their rhetoric, you'll probably like 1984. It'll be familiar. But I'm of the opinion that what we have to fear is what seems the most appealing- a sense of security, a world without opposition and fighting, widespread medication to numb us and smooth out our lives. A world where we don't have to bother with thinking too hard. That's why Brave New World is far scarier and far more valuable to me, because it seems to my eyes that it's that world we're coming closer and closer to every day- one where we can fight for what we believe is right, and we can read and think and debate and philosophise and rebel, but we choose not to.
I like essays. I like books. But I don't like when an author tries to pass one off as the other.
So please stop shouting, Orwell. We can hear you just fine....more
I was expecting a lot from this- Poe managed to make nightmare fuel out of a simple raven, so what terrific terrors What a disappointing little story.
I was expecting a lot from this- Poe managed to make nightmare fuel out of a simple raven, so what terrific terrors might he concoct of a black cat, which already has a weight of lore and superstition behind it?
Well, sadly, The Black Cat really isn't about a black cat. It's mostly about the narrator/protagonist (unnamed, as always), who also happens to be the most unsavoury character I have ever read about in a short story. Because not only is he evil- the man kills a defenceless cat who loves him- but he is also incredibly stupid. (That wasn't a spoiler, by the by- it happens about two pages in.) A drunk and an animal abuser, we get to follow this lovely man as he makes a complete 180 from gentle, quiet, animal lover to alcoholic and murderer.
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That's the main reason why I gave this just two stars: the man's transformation is so damn unrealistic. I realise that alcoholism can change people- make them bitter, angry, distracted- but it does not completely overhaul who they are inside. He is a totally different person by the end of seven pages than he was when he began, and his reasoning for why this was- pinning it all on alcohol- was feeble and ridiculous. It's also never explained why he began drinking excessively in the first place. He's also a moron of the highest order: (view spoiler)[after inexplicably MURDERING HIS WIFE (all because of alcohol and a damned cat) he's so confident in his Cask of Amontillado-esque form of body disposal that he unintentionally rats himself out. (hide spoiler)] I wanted to punch this asshole in the face, especially when he said things like this:
And a brute beast- whose fellow I had contemptuously destroyed- a brute beast to work out for me- for me, a man fashioned in the image of the High God- so much of insufferable woe! Alas! neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of rest any more!
BOO HOO WOE IS YOU.
The supernatural element in here was quite confusing. I didn't really understand the significance of the cat other than a catalyst to madness, and I feel like The Raven does a much better job of portraying a specific animal as a distressing symbol of unending grief. The eponymous black cat isn't anything special, and there's no explanation of why the man projected all of his rage onto this one random feline. Look, I hate cats, but I've never been pushed to hang one from a tree, and I'm certain I wouldn't even if I was super drunk and angry. People have principles that can't just be thrown away with the introduction of alcoholism or cat-rage.
The writing was nice, but even that couldn't save this mess from the stupidity and inexplicability it was drowning in, so it gets two sad stars from me.
I love the premise- fearing a horrible sickness that has seized his lands, a hedonistic prince locks himself and hundreds of his friends away in a casI love the premise- fearing a horrible sickness that has seized his lands, a hedonistic prince locks himself and hundreds of his friends away in a castle, with an enormous wall running the length of it so nothing can get in or out. But soon the prince's fanciful denial is shattered in a very... strange way.
Basically, what my dislike of this comes down to is the length. It's only four pages, which (for me at least) simply is not enough time to become invested in a story and care about its ending. The writing is beautiful as always, but there was something missing, something I couldn't quite put my finger on. I didn't really care about the plot, wasn't even rooting for the selfish Prince Prospero to get his comeuppance.
The idea of the rooms of all different colours just kinda made me shrug, the same way I shrugged in The Picture of Dorian Gray when everybody is avoiding Dorian because of his incredibly scandalous lifestyle- which pretty much entails collecting foreign instruments and fancy books. I feel that both of those things were supposed to have a greater affect on the reader than they did. Perhaps I'm missing the symbolism of the rooms, though I do have my own theory about the castle itself: that it (view spoiler)[represents the human mind, or maybe just the mind of Prospero, and as much as the enormous ballroom tries, it will never be able to shut out what comes from the black room, which I took to represent paranoia and the knowledge of impending death. (hide spoiler)] Again, I feel I must impress that this may be completely and totally wrong, and maybe my impeded grasp of symbolism is what kept me from enjoying this short tale. It is what it is.
I much preferred Ligeia and The Fall of the House of Usher, which, though they're not as well-known as The Masque of the Red Death, are longer and more fleshed-out. Read it here.
(Though the Month of Poe is still in full swing, once Halloween passes I'm going to take a little break from Great Tales and Poems. I'm in the mood for some action-adventure fantasy and was thinking of trying The Final Empire, unless any of you guys have some recommendations for a good fantasy book? I haven't explored the genre very much, and I think it's high time I do.)...more
While I didn't really understand the point or message of this story, it was beautifully written and the tone is darkly, insanely, intensely beautiful,While I didn't really understand the point or message of this story, it was beautifully written and the tone is darkly, insanely, intensely beautiful, so I cannot help but bestow four well-deserved stars upon yet another short story by my beloved Mr Poe.
The basic premise of this story is the narrator's relationship with Ligeia, his wife, to the grave and beyond. This tale is aptly named, as not a single thought passes through the protagonist's head that is not about the eponymous Ligeia. Our narrator (who is unnamed, as per usual) takes every chance he can to declare his love for the Lady Ligeia- four pages are dedicated to a description of her face, for god's sake- but, to me, there was something... off about their love. It seemed like a mutual obsession with each other, that Ligeia and her husband loved each other in a sick, narcissistic, warped kind of way, and I loved those subtle undertones of darkness beneath the veneer of dramatic, undying proclamations of love both from the narrator and his wife.
Another wonderful thing about this short story is the tone. Throughout the climax and much of the story, the narrator is under the influence of opium, which casts a feverish, hyperreal yet dreamlike feeling upon it all. The ending, while it was in line with what I expect of Poe, was still great. He could have easily just (view spoiler)[brought back Ligeia as some sort of ghost/corpse bride/zombie, but the whole dramatic ripping off of the bandages to reveal waves of raven-black hair and dark eyes was awesome. I quite liked the use of that transformation. (hide spoiler)]
But, like I mentioned earlier, I really don't know the meaning of this story. It's more of a story for story's sake, which I am completely fine with. This isn't typical Poe- the narrator is much more manic here than in most of the other poems and stories I've read so far. (Excepting the Tell-Tale Heart, of course, but not The Cask of Amontillado, because Montresor really was quite calm about the whole thing, wasn't he?) He reaches marvellous highs and crashing lows, and is deep in the throes of grief, which Poe writes so heartbreakingly well it's hard not to be convinced that he was pouring a lot of his own pain into this particular tale.
"My memory flew back (oh, with what intensity of regret!) to Ligeia, the beloved, the august, the beautiful, the entombed. I revelled in recollections of her purity, of her wisdom, of her lofty- her ethereal nature, of her passionate, her idolatrous love. Now, then, did my spirit fully and freely burn with more than all the fires of her own. In the excitement of my opium dreams (for I was habitually fettered in the shackles of the drug), I would call aloud upon her name, during the silence of the night, or among the sheltered recesses of the glens by day, as if, through the wild eagerness, the solemn passion, I could restore her to the pathways she had abandoned- ah, could it be forever?- upon the earth."...more
Dark things have a way of slipping in through narrow spaces.
I'm normally very hesitant to read books in a series that end in a decimal. This is becausDark things have a way of slipping in through narrow spaces.
I'm normally very hesitant to read books in a series that end in a decimal. This is because the #0.5s, the #1.5s, and (god help me) the #1.75s almost always seem to be either a transparent moneymaking ploy on the author's part or a lame spinoff of the same story but with the names changed. A notable exception is Warm Up (Vicious, #0.5) because Vicious was just as good as the short story that preceded it and V.E. Schwab is a brilliant literary legend, but I digress.
THIS. STORY. WAS. AMAZING.
Honestly, it had everything going for it: captivating setting, complex characters, positively gorgeous writing, and a touch of dark whimsy. It read like a delicious cross between a fairy tale and a ghost story, with shades of the superb graphic short story collection, Through the Woods. But the part I thought was the most breathtakingly awesome was the twist.
I've never before read a twist like that- one that managed to effectively (view spoiler)[switch how the reader views the antagonist and protagonist. The villain becomes the hero, the hero the villain, (hide spoiler)] and it never felt gimmicky or abrupt. It was beautiful and simply ingenious.
Bottom line: read this story. You won't regret it. I am now super excited to read Bardugo's Shadow and Bone and Six of Crows.
No path could lead her back to the home she had known. The thought opened a bleak crack inside of her, a fissure where the cold seeped through. For a terrifying moment, she was nothing but a lost girl, nameless and unwanted. She might stand there forever, a shovel in her hand, with no one to call her home. Nadya turned on her heel and scurried back to the warm confines of the hut, whispering her name beneath her breath as if she might forget it....more
I've read this so many times I've lost count, but I still adore it. The imagery, the creepiness, the frenetic cadence it takes on when read aloud... PI've read this so many times I've lost count, but I still adore it. The imagery, the creepiness, the frenetic cadence it takes on when read aloud... Pure awesomeness. I try to read it every Halloween....more
Not only does Poe nail the tone (which shouldn't come as a surprise, because when does he ever fail to do that?) but the writing i[image]
I LOVED THIS.
Not only does Poe nail the tone (which shouldn't come as a surprise, because when does he ever fail to do that?) but the writing is really spectacular.
He roamed from chamber to chamber with hurried, unequal, and objectless sleep. The pallor of his countenance had assumed, if possible, a more ghastly hue- but the luminousness of his eye had utterly gone out. the once occasional huskiness of his tone was heard no more; and a tremulous quaver, as if of extreme terror, habitually characterized his utterance. there were times, indeed, when I thought his unceasingly agitated mind was laboring with some oppressive secret, to divulge which he struggled for the necessary courage. At times, again, I was obliged to resolve all into the mere inexplicable vagaries of of madness, for I beheld him gazing upon vacancy for long hours, in an attitude of the profoundest attention, as if listening to some imaginary sound. It was no wonder that his condition terrified- that it infected me. I felt it creeping upon me, by slow yet certain degrees, the wild influences of his own fantastic yet impressive superstitions.
There's a sense not only of darkness and mystery and creeping superstition, but also of an oppressive and profound sadness. Usher is damaged, and all sorts of insane, but you can't help but feel for him- the last descendant of the House of Usher.
I also adored the dualistic symbolism of the House of Usher as both Usher's archaic bloodline and the more literal dwelling of the Ushers. Although Poe doesn't go into too much architectural detail, I'm fairly certain every person who reads this story will think of a sprawling Gothic stone mansion. (As they should, because that is exactly what it would be.) The ending, where (view spoiler)[both houses wind up falling (hide spoiler)], was darkly beautiful as well.
The only caveat I have with this story that prevented it from getting five stars was the fact that nothing was really explained. I'm fine with this- it's the case in many of Poe's stories- but I wanted to know more about (view spoiler)[Usher's curious affliction. And what was the deal with Madeline, his wraith-like sister? (hide spoiler)]
Also, one of my favourite lines from The Fall of the House of Usher is, "An excited and highly distempered ideality threw a sulphureous lustre over all." I just think it's so succinct in describing the entire tone of the scene.
This book scared the shit out of me as a kid. I haven't even been able to muster up the courage necessary to read it again because I have such terrifyThis book scared the shit out of me as a kid. I haven't even been able to muster up the courage necessary to read it again because I have such terrifying memories of the artwork....more
If I could describe my opinion of this book in one word, that word would be dualistic. It feels like The Curse of the Wendigo is made up of two books:If I could describe my opinion of this book in one word, that word would be dualistic. It feels like The Curse of the Wendigo is made up of two books: one I loved, and one I didn't. Thus, my feelings toward it are currently one huge, messy, emotional ball of contradiction and ambivalence.
Let's start with the synopsis, giving away as little as possible: Will Henry and Doctor Warthrop are off once again, only this time their location is much more wild- the Canadian bush- and their quarry is much more... mysterious. They're searching for John Chanler, an old friend of Warthrop's, and any clues to his disappearance, but what they find is altogether more sinister.
My thoughts on this section of the book, with Will, Warthrop, and their chipper guide, Sergeant Hawk, trekking through the thick Boreal forest?
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I LOVED IT.
The writing, though it's exquisite as usual throughout the entire novel, shines especially here, and the setting allows for some really spectacular imagery. Just imagine: spindly tree limbs reaching towards the pale sky, buzzards circling above like a premature funeral procession, nothing but snow and ash for miles and miles. While the little camping trip starts out quite nicely, it goes south rather quickly. Starvation, madness, thirst, frostbite, the whole bit, and all of it is so terrifyingly detailed you'll feel as if you're right there with our unfortunate crew, starving with them, crying with them, going slowly and agonisingly insane with them.
[image] Side note: their time in the woods reminded me so much of this song.
I especially like the personification of nature, monstrumology, and Warthrop's scientific ambition. She's described as an aloof mistress, his true love, the one thing that Warthrop has pursued his whole life and yet the thing that has been the most cruel to him. It was a nice touch, and could so easily have been cheesy, but somehow never was.
Around us the forest had been blasted white, and the snow continued to fall, flakes the size of quarters, a heartbreakingly beautiful landscape. Suddenly my eyes welled with tears- not tears of sorrow or despair but tears of hatred, of rage, of a loathing that rose from the very depths of the soul. The doctor had been wrong. His true love was not indifferent. She rejoiced in the brutality of her nature. She savored our slow, torturous death. There was no mercy, no justice, not even a purpose. She was killing us simply because she could.
Not only is the imagery damn near perfect, but Yancey captures the tone astonishingly well, too. Throughout this whole section (about the first third of the book), there's a lurking sense of foreboding, of something watching you. Suspicion, discontent, and all of it wonderfully subtle. It's more of a slow-burn dread than all-out horror, and it's very cool to see Yancey take a different tract than BLOOD! GORE! PUS! VOMIT! AAAAHHHHH!
All of that changes in the second half. The plot that had been escalating marvellously in the first half- Chanler's disappearance, what's following the party in the woods, why Chanler left for Canada in the first place, why Warthrop felt the need to search for him- is pretty much thrown to the wayside. Instead we board a train to New York City, 1889- for Will Henry, it's a fantastic, overwhelming, sensory city filled with buildings more enormous than he'd even thought possible. Will and Warthrop head to the SASM, the Society for the Advancement of the Science of Monstrumology, and by this point I was getting super excited. I was hoping all (or at least some) of my questions about the Society would be answered, questions I'd had since it was mentioned in passing in The Monstrumologist. Questions like: What are the other monstrumologists like? Are they more or less eccentric than Warthrop? How many are there? What does the Society actually do, and why does Warthrop love it so much? What do the other monstrumologists do when they're not hunting/"studying" malevolent life forms? And, for that matter, what does Warthrop do when he isn't hunting monsters with Will?* Does he just hang around moping, or writing poetry, or staring out windows pensively?
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Here's the thing: exactly ZERO of those questions were answered.
Mostly because Will Henry doesn't spend a lot of time with the Society. Yes, he's there, but usually he's daydreaming or asleep because whatever they're doing is like, SUPER boring, you guys. We do get to see the Monstrumarium, though, which is a treat, as it's where all of the specimens of monstrumology- living or dead- are catalogued. Still, I wanted to know more, and the Society could have been explored to a much fuller extent than it was.
Also, Yancey makes the abrupt transition from terror to horror, from subtle something-isn't-quite-right to all-out gross. The pure graphic nature of the gore, violence, and excrement in this book is rather off-putting, and it started to feel gratuitous in a way it never did in The Monstrumologist. I mean, seriously? (view spoiler)[BABY FACES FLOATING IN RIVERS OF SHIT?! (hide spoiler)] Are you KIDDING me? If that isn't nasty for nasty's sake, then I don't know what is.
The rest of the second half is just... boring. The mystery surrounding Chanler and the events in Canada is still present, but it seems much more like an afterthought here. The plot stalled, and when it did pick up, it felt like a convoluted whirlwind that was too confusing and unrealistic to fully enjoy. I know what you're thinking. Mia, it's a book about a guy who hunts MONSTERS! It's not supposed to be realistic! That's kind of an unfair criticism, no? And you know what, maybe it is unfair to say that. It's just that the first book felt so real, and this one just didn't feel as genuine. However, where the plot and message were murky and muddled, the characters were what really stood out here.
Honestly, I am not exaggerating when I say that the characters are what saved this book from being a two-star read for me. I'm willing to forgive a lot of a book's faults if its characters are great- interesting, genuine, not clean-cut, with complex backstories, personalities, and motivations. Really, in my opinion, this series is as good as it gets in terms of characterisation. Much of The Curse of the Wendigo is a character study of Warthrop, who is so much more interesting than was portrayed in The Monstrumologist. We learn so much about him, his past (tragic, naturally), why he is a monstrumologist in the first place, his lover. And yes, I did just say lover; turns out Warthrop's chest cavity is not entirely hollow after all- he does have a heart. I really don't want to spoil any of this for you guys, so suffice it to say that you'll learn a lot of surprising things about Pellinore Warthrop, and many of his actions, like my beloved Victor from Vicious, can be seen as selfish or selfless, depending on the perspective.
[image] (Side note: now I really want to reread Vicious.)
Now onto Will Henry, and what a nice surprise he was in this book! Let's face it- Will was a total dishrag in The Montrumologist. Not so in Curse of the Wendigo- he really proves his worth in this one, and toughens up- I've heard slow starvation and weeks of surviving in the frigid wilderness will do that to you. For the first time, Will starts talking back to Warthrop, and it's not all "Yes, sir" anymore. I think all of Will Henry's near-death experiences might have loosened him up a bit, because, honestly, the number of times he falls unconscious due to grievous injury are crazy. I counted at least five. By the end, he also becomes disillusioned in a fascinating way, forced into further maturation by the sheer nature of the things he's witnessed (the spoiler tags are actually extremely minor spoilers, but I just tagged them because of the fact that they're super graphic):
In a lightless cellar flooded with human waste, (view spoiler)[a starving infant is held under until it drowns, its tiny lungs filled with the effluvia of six hundred of its fellow human beings, and then its face is peeled off, as one takes off the skin of an apple, peeled off, and cast into Dante's river (hide spoiler)]...
In the name of all that's holy, tell my why God felt the need to make a hell. It seems so redundant.
My favourite part though, which rivalled my enjoyment of Yancey's superb writing, was Warthrop and Will's relationship. It's not just master/servant, nor is it father/son, and it's not even really mentor/apprentice. Somewhere between all of those lies Pellinore and Will, and the lines between them, which seemed so rigid in the first book, begin to blur in the most amazing way. Will is forced to think of Warthrop differently- as a man who lived and loved once upon a time, a man who had friends he cared about and a bright future with the woman he loved- all of which are nearly impossible for Will to even conceive of. Warthrop, in turn, treats Will less like a servant, and through their horrific journey, despite the screaming matches and the fact that at one point Warthrop calls Will Henry a "thickheaded sycophantic piece of snot" and a "nauseating, worthless mealymouthed half-wit" (ouch), they grow inevitably closer together. It's quite beautiful to watch.
And the last chapter... my god. I didn't cry, but at the last line, I was really close to tears. So many feelings. It's just so exquisitely sad on so many levels, but somehow it's beautiful too.
I've heard really good things about the last two books in the series, which I am undoubtedly going to read, but I don't own either of them and my library doesn't have them so I'm going to take a little break before continuing. Kearns makes an appearance in the next one, which is fun, and I have to say I hope that the next book is at least slightly less devastating than this one. This one is like a brick to the face, seeing (view spoiler)[the last vestiges of Warthrop's life completely wrenched from him, his best friend and ex-fiancee both killed horrifically. (hide spoiler)] It was brutal. So here's to hoping that The Isle of Blood will be able to remedy the plot problems that its two predecessors had, but still be able to pack an emotional punch wrapped in the cloak of Yancey's brilliant writing.
*I am very curious about this. It's not like Warthrop even has a job! He's a scientist, a monstrumologist, and a smarty-pants, but he doesn't get paid. And he doesn't need to, either, because he's loaded. So what does he do all day when we's not cutting up Anthropophagi or killing Mongolian Death Worms or responding to the sorts of summons that kick off this book and its predecessor?...more
"To the victims of its tyranny, there was the choice of death with its direst physical agonies, or death with its most hideous moral horrors. I had be"To the victims of its tyranny, there was the choice of death with its direst physical agonies, or death with its most hideous moral horrors. I had been reserved for the latter. By long suffering my nerves had been unstrung, until I trembled at the sound of my own voice, and had become in every respect a fitting subject for the species of torture which awaited me."
Really good, suspenseful little story, told with Poe's deft touch of the macabre. Unlike most of Poe's other stories, though, this one actually ends (view spoiler)[on a positive note! (hide spoiler)] (I know! Crazy, right?)
I didn't love this too much, though, because it didn't have the sort of moral or philosophical depth that Ligeia and The Fall of the House of Usher did- then again, those two dealt with largely supernatural, abnormal happenings, whereas this is pretty much just an account of Inquisitorial torture. Heinous and terrifying, to be sure, but it didn't make me think or ask me important questions (apart from wondering what the narrator was sentenced to death for), and those are two things that I really want from my short stories. I hold Poe's stories to an even higher standard, as those two mentioned before were amazing and thought-provoking.
Some background: I picked up this little beauty at Drawn & Quarterly in Montreal, an amazing bookshop specialising in graphic novels and comics, and wSome background: I picked up this little beauty at Drawn & Quarterly in Montreal, an amazing bookshop specialising in graphic novels and comics, and when I bought it the cashier told me, "This book is really good." Cool, I thought, that's a good recommendation. But then I read the book and let me tell you that is the understatement of the freaking century.
This book is not just really good. It is fantastic. It is dark and creepy and weird and beautiful and artistic and everything you'd want from a fairy tale, a horror story, and a graphic novel all rolled into one. And since it is so wonderful and I can't talk about the book as a whole without devolving into rampant, incoherent praise, I'm going to review each of the stories in Through the Woods separately, and in the order they appear.
An Introduction ★★★★★
While not technically a story, this introduction sets the tone for the rest of the collection. The author, Emily Carroll, talks about how she used to read at night as a child, by the light of a lamp clipped onto her headboard. She imagined that there were things waiting for her in the dark beyond the beam of light, things would grab her and pull her down if she let them. In a way, the rest of the book is about all those things waiting in the darkness.
Our Neighbor's House ★★★★★
A really strong opening which elicited my first "WHOA". This tale of three sisters, Mary, Beth, and Hannah, in a cold, lonely cabin and what becomes of them is stark, simple, and marvellously scary. It's a feat because we never actually get to see the villain, and we never truly know what becomes of our three sisters, but the ending gives a sense of closure all the same. There's a mounting sense of dread running through the story, culminating in the moment when (view spoiler)[the last sister, Beth, wakes up alone in the cabin and knows by the end of the day she will have met her sisters' same fate. (hide spoiler)]
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This was also my first immersion into Carroll's artwork, which is stunningly beautiful. Most of her stories take place in the winter, and the dark woods, enormous snow drifts, and tiny cabin are really beautiful imagery for My Neighbor's House.
A Lady's Hands are Cold ★★★★★
"And then it settled into her bones. Every night, that song (that wail) until the girl's insides were clotted with cold heartache."
Many of the stories in this collection read like warped fairy tales, this one especially so. A woman is arranged to marry a rich man and life seems to be going well- she has several handmaids, antique jewellery, fancy gowns, a huge mansion. But every night she hears a strange, keening song emanating from the very house itself, which leads to the dark heart of the story, and the secrets that both her husband and the mansion are hiding. Think Bluebeard, but darker, weirder, and cooler.
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My absolute favourite part about this tale is the last page, when everything finally clicks and you realise, without needing to be told, that (view spoiler)[the heroine has been doomed from the very beginning. (hide spoiler)] Beware, friends- this is one of the gorier stories, as it depicts dismembered limbs and reanimated corpses and such. But it's never overly gory.
His Face All Red ★★★★☆
"But three days later my brother came from the woods. (Most strange things do.) The joy. The joy on all their faces... but it couldn't be him. It couldn't be."
Most strange things come from the woods. Beasts, madmen, and occasionally something...
...darker.
This is a pretty open-ended story, not everything is explained, but that's the case with most of the tales in Through the Woods. If you're the type of reader who needs everything to be explained and figured out, then you might be irritated by this book, and especially this story. But if you're like me and you can enjoy a good story without needing to know all of its secrets, you'll love this. Part of the creepiness in this collection emanates from the unknowns in every story, and how one must use one's imagination to fill in the deliberate blanks.
But, getting back to this one. It's the story of two brothers, a beast, a hole, and what happens in the darkness of the woods when nobody else is around. Plus, Mrs. Carroll has it posted on her website, so you can read it for free here!
My Friend Janna ★★★☆☆
"I admit, at the time, we thought it a splendid diversion. Because I was what waited within the walls of Janna's mother's house. No ghosts, no spirits. No demons. 'Are you there, O visitors? O otherworldly things, O creatures of the faraway darkness!'
Me, who would scratch and kick when I heard my cue. Me, who would shake the plates from the wall."
While I really liked the premise- two friends, Janna and Yvonne, who trick their neighbours into thinking that Janna can speak to the dead- I wasn't crazy about the execution. I was never really sure why, or how, or by what (view spoiler)[Janna became haunted. (hide spoiler)] And while I loved reading Janna's nonsensical notes, I wish they were explained more than just "Oh well Janna's gone bonkers look at this stupid stuff she's written".
The Nesting Place ★★★☆☆
Mabel, nicknamed Bell, spends summer vacation at her older brother's house, ringed by ominous woods she's been warned to stay out of and an unsettling feeling from the cook, Madame Beauchamp, and Bell's brother's mysteriously cheery wife, Rebecca.
This story is remarkable because it reads a lot like a book condensed into a few pages. It has a great plot, characters with backstories, mysteries, twists, and, in keeping with the theme, monsters. In fact, I loved the monsters in this one, because I've always been a fan of monsters that burrow deep within you and whom you don't realise are there until it's too late. They're the scariest kind, in my opinion, and they're the ones that grace the freakish pages of The Nesting Place.
So why only three stars, then? Well... I just didn't get it. It felt like it had been building up to a bigger reveal then the typical (view spoiler)[skin-wearing monsters and red worms protruding out of Rebecca's face. I also didn't understand the significance of the crooked teeth- what does that have to do with the skin-worm things? (hide spoiler)] This is definitely the goriest story, though, so be warned. There's some pretty startling imagery, such as: (view spoiler)[
[image]
(hide spoiler)] Yeah. Ick.
In Conclusion ★★★★★
A really, really wonderful and short conclusion in the vein of Little Red Riding Hood, which closes up the collection with this amazing quote: [image]
On this book as a whole, I have to agree with J. Caleb Mozzocco, who wrote in his review that, "Through the Woods is thus a completely 21st-century form used to tell new stories that read as if they could have been centuries old." And while I would love to say that this hauntingly beautiful collection is perfect for Halloween, I would really recommend reading it in the cold of winter, when the darkness of the woods and the things that wait within can truly come to life.
P.S. Also! Emily Carroll has a bunch of other cool stuff on her website, my favourite being an interactive comic/story called Margot's Room
P.P.S. This book pairs incredibly well with the song In the Woods Somewhere by Hozier. They are perfect together....more
Interests: •Animals •Prostitution •Apples, because they remind me of blood and human skin •Nature, specSNOW, GLASS, APPLES CHARACTER BIOS
[image] Snow White
Interests: •Animals •Prostitution •Apples, because they remind me of blood and human skin •Nature, specifically forests •Dwarves •Biting people's genitals
Looking for: A kind, loving man who will let me bite him and suck his blood enjoys nature.
[image] Evil Queen
Interests: •Curses & glamours •Having sex with princes •Dark magic •Revenge •Stringing human hearts above my bed with garlic and berries
Looking for: Someone to share in my revenge fantasies. Preferably someone who knows how to preserve a human heart for three years.
[image] The Prince
Interests:
•Princesses •Having sex with evil queens •My royal entourage •Necrophilia •Unifying kingdoms
Looking for: A lovely corpse woman to have fun with! _______________________________________________________________ In all honesty, this was a really fucked-up little story. I didn't love it, probably because I'm not into fairy tale retellings, but I liked the Evil Queen's tone throughout it all- probably because I've always fancied myself more of a villain than a princess, or because the Evil Queen is a thousand times cooler than Snow White. Read it here....more
"The darkest souls are not those which choose to exist within the hell of the abyss, but those which choose to break free from the abyss and move sile"The darkest souls are not those which choose to exist within the hell of the abyss, but those which choose to break free from the abyss and move silently among us."
Although the above quote is from the movie Halloween, it sums up this book almost perfectly. Because even though The Necromancer may at first dazzle readers with its sharp wit and cleverness, it has a dark heart, mostly due to its eponymous leading man, Johannes Cabal.
[image]
Cabal has a problem, you see. A while ago, he sold his soul to Satan and now... Well, he's having second thoughts. The only thing to do is take a brief journey to hell and strike up a bargain with none other than Lucifer himself: in return for his soul, Cabal must convince 100 other people to sign their souls to eternal damnation. If he fails, though, Satan gets the souls he's collected, as well as Cabal's soul- and his life. And so, with the aid of a dark carnival, his brother (a delightfully charismatic vampire with strong morals), a small faculty of the undead, some freaks, and his own calculating intellect, Cabal sets off to triumph or fail- but whatever happens, he will have given it his damnedest.
Alright, now that the synopsis is over with, I can finally dish about all of the things I loved in this book!
He spent an undignified few moments trying to get over the fact that he was no longer in Hell, wheeling on the spot like somebody who has walked into the wrong toilets. When he finally deduced that he had been unceremoniously translocated, he marked the revelation with a filthy curse in a language that had been dead eight thousand years, so managing to be amazingly erudite and amazingly uncouth in the selfsame instant.
Firstly, Johannes Cabal himself. Where do I even begin? This book is very much a character study of Cabal- his darkness, his soullessness, his arrogance, his desperation, and the tiny flickers of compassion and humanity that he tries his very best to hide from the world. Much of his background is murky- we know practically nothing of his past, or what he did on a daily basis before selling his soul. And that's the least of the enigma that is Johannes. As the carnival travels across England, stealing souls and leaving mayhem in its wake, we spend a lot of time inside his mind- we watch him struggle and rage, scheme and trick, steal and swindle. We watch him kill, and spare lives. We root for him and curse him in the same breath. And that, I think, is what a great character is supposed to be: complex, neither wholly good nor wholly bad, with motivations that are difficult to piece together and never clean-cut. Great characters are ones that you can relate to and empathise with despite their outlandish circumstances. They remind us of ourselves and our own struggles, and they make us doubt both their own actions and ours.
"Oh, Johannes," it moaned in exasperation. "You utter idiot. This is to get your soul back, isn't it? Don't you know anything? You can't beat him. He only bets on certainties."
"So people keep telling me," replied Cabal, growing exasperated himself. "Well, I say 'people,' but that's a fairly loose term. I need my soul back. That's not open to negotiation. I took the only deal he would offer. Take it or leave it. I took it. Perhaps he can't be beaten. I don't know, nor shall I until I give this the best I can. And if I fail, it won't be through lack of will or defeatism setting in. I'll be able to look Satan in the eye and say, 'I did my best, and it came pretty close. And while you just sat down here on your fat, sulphuric arse, I stretched for the impossible, so don't imagine for a moment that this is your victory, you smug, infernal bastard.'" He stopped, breathing heavily.
Cabal actually reminded me quite a bit of myself, which was slightly scary. No, I don't coldly murder people, and I would know better than to sell my soul to the devil, and I don't believe I'm quite as narcissistic or bitter as Cabal. But some of his traits- the discomfort around people, the way he (sometimes unknowingly) hurts people by stating facts, his biting snark, the way most people thinks he feels nothing at all, the ruthless, stop-at-nothing-until-you-understand-how-it-works sort of curiosity- that's incredibly similar to myself. And that's precisely why Johannes Cabal is such a masterpiece of a character: he's a snarky little bastard, neither hero nor villain, and even when you hate him viciously for being so obtuse or cold or just plain mean, you see enough of yourself in his darkness that you can never write him off completely.
Also, HORST! Horst is Johannes' estranged brother who also happens to be a vampire, and a rather charming one at that. Cabal recruits his help in running the carnival (which is entrusted to him by Satan for the purpose of stealing souls) because he realises that for all his knowledge, Cabal is pretty useless in the actual person-to-person advertising and entertainment aspects of running a travelling carnival. Horst is what's known as a foil in the literary world; that is, a character that contrasts another character, highlighting certain aspects of them that wouldn't be seen otherwise. In this case, Horst's morality and easy charm are a sharp contrast to Cabal's amorality and general misanthropy. The relationship between the two brothers was really touching at times, and most of the time I was shouting, "Just stop being assholes and say you love each other, dammit!" Needless to say, (view spoiler)[Horst's death absolutely crushed me. Especially since Johannes was indirectly responsible and because it got me wondering if getting out of his deal scot-free was a blessing or a curse for Cabal. Because although it may first seem like a triumph- outwitting Satan and all that- the ending leaves us with a Johannes Cabal that feels decidedly tragic, more broken than he was in the beginning despite his gain of a soul. (hide spoiler)] Very thought-provoking stuff.
"You're dead," said Barrow, hoping he was reading Horst's character properly.
"Undead, technically. Not Johannes's doing, I hasten to add. Not directly, at any rate. He had promised to find some way of bringing me back to the land of the living. Not that I'm not in the land of the living now, you understand? I'm speaking figuratively. Now I'm not so sure. I need a little time to think."
"I don't understand you."
"Neither do I, I'm afraid."
There's not much to say about the plot of The Necromancer, as I don't want to give much away. It's exceedingly, brilliantly weird, though, and involves prison escapees, noble ex-cops, swindling, precocious children, a brief foray into purgatory, and a good deal of demonic influence.
I found Howard's writing lovely- it was witty, smart, beautiful, imaginative, and (here comes that word again) dark. It definitely reminded me of The Monstrumologist, only less gory and horrific. Somehow the author manages to dance just along the line between exceedingly clever and trying too hard, but never goes into the trying too hard territory. He also does a really amazing job of showing, not telling, and making connections here requires a fair amount of effort and reading between the lines from the reader, and I love that. I was very surprised upon learning that Jonathan L. Howard actually wrote The Necromancer before he wrote Katya's World, which I inexplicably enjoyed but which I thought wasn't nearly as good as The Necromancer. (Side note: the sequel to Katya's World- Katya's War- was actually fantastic.) Howard's not afraid to deviate from the norm either- parts of the book are told in the form of memos, a child's school assignment, letters, and some scientific analyses from Cabal.
This book wasn't without its flaws, however, which is why I've been floundering between giving it four and five stars. My biggest gripe is the setting. It really isn't very well done. At first, I thought it took place in the late 1880s based on the technology and fashion- cravats and what not. Only halfway through the book did I realise that it actually took place in the 1910s, after 1918, due to passing references to Dadaism and the First World War. This may seem like a meaningless difference, but for me, it totally changes the background, especially the recent occurrence of the first global war. As for the "where" element, I only know it takes place in Britain because of the dialect (of other characters- the brothers Cabal are German) and the names of villages (not that I actually knew any of those villages- they could very well be totally made up for all I know- but because they all sounded rather British). I'm also still ambivalent towards the ending- (view spoiler)[mostly because Cabal doesn't really seem like he's learned anything. Not that I was expecting an epiphany (like I said, he's a stubborn son of a bitch), but I would have liked for him to have grown in some way, especially with Horst's death. The ending wasn't all bad, though, as I loved when we get to see what Cabal's been keeping in his basement. It adds to the mystery of his intentions and adds more credence to his reasons for studying necromancy (see my status update below). It also raises the possibility that our wonderful antihero-possibly-turned-villain may have a heart. (hide spoiler)] I'm settling on five stars for now, because it was incredibly enjoyable and it pulled me out of a dreadful, Poe-induced reading slump. Besides, it's like I said in my review of The Shadow of the Wind: five-star books are not flawless, they are books that I loved despite- or perhaps even because of- their flaws.
Not to sound elitist, but I feel like this book will probably be enjoyed by a small group of readers- those who side with unlikeable characters, think the villains are almost always more interesting than the heroes, and have a dark sense of humour. If you don't fall into that category, you might still like it, but chances are you won't get the appeal. Luckily, the above characteristics describe my reading tastes perfectly, and so I found it a fun, darkly whimsical ride. If you're looking for some great gallows humour, complex characters, and an irresistibly original premise, chances are you'll like this one a good deal.
(Note: I apologise if this review pops up on your feed a few times. It's not because I crave popularity or I'm trying to garner likes, it's just because I don't have the book with me now and I like to add quotes to my review, so I'll be adding some quotes from the book when I get a chance. This actually goes for all of my reviews- as a rule, I never purposely bump them. Most likely, if you see some of my reviews continually popping up on your stream, it's because I found a grammar or spelling error, was too anal-retentive to let it be, and forgot to turn off the "update to stream" button when I edited it.)...more
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