Challenge Complete: Gothic Reading Challenge

Last November I signed up for the Gothic Reading Challenge. This one caught my eye when I found it on Senora G's Reading, Reading and Life site and though Gothic books aren't my favorite, there are times that they just hit the spot. It has its own dedicated site at Gothic Reading Challenge for reviews and even a list of books for those who wanted a bit of help chooses their challenge fare.

I signed up for a mid-level:

A Maniacal Frenzy - Read 10 novels with Gothic elements.

Here is my finished list (as well as a few intendeds):

1. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (2/26/11)
2. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (3/15/11)
3. The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (4/11/11)
4. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (6/11/11)
5. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (5/5/11)
6. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (5/28/11)
7. Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker (3/23/11)
8. Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice (9/13/11)
9. Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen (8/15/11)
10. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (7/6/11)
11. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libby Bray (Off the Shelf too)
12. Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin

Challenge Complete 9/13/11. Will probably read the other two as well--but I have fulfilled my commitment.

Interview with the Vampire: Review

I may be making some enemies with my review here--I know how popular this book is...but I'm always going to be honest. So, here we go......

From the Goodreads synopsis for Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice:

We are in a small room with the vampire, face to face, as he speaks, as he pours out the hypnotic, shocking, moving, and erotically charged confessions of his first two hundred years as one of the living dead. . .

Ooooooookay. If the story Louis tells is supposed to be erotic, then I have a completely different idea about what erotic is than whoever wrote this synopsis. Just sayin'. You want an erotic vampire? My vote goes to Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Saint-Germain. Now there's a vampire I wouldn't mind offering my neck to....

There for a while (oh, say, the first hundred pages or so), I was thinking Hey, I'm not into vampires--but Anne Rice can tell a story. And then I lost that feeling. Never got it back. Quite frankly I just don't see what all the fuss has been about (for over 30 years--can it really be true that this thing was published in 1976???). Louis is a big whiny-pants--200 years worth. Geez. Get over the whole depression thing already. You're a vampire. Maybe you didn't wanna be, but you are. Suck it up (ha!) and get on with your non-life.

It started out interesting. The idea of the vampire giving an interview to tell his "life" story was a novel one. And I realize this was kind of a ground-breaking book in the whole vampire thing. But seriously, when I lost interest, I really lost interest. Didn't care about Louis. Didn't care if he and Claudia ever found more vampires and discovered what was really going on with the whole vampire life. Didn't care if Lestat was really dead or not. Just did not care. And that, in my opinion, is one of the jobs of the author of good fiction. I should be interested in what happens to these people that have been invented. But I've finished the book and all I can say is Good. Glad that's done. And I can guarantee that I won't be picking up any more of the Vampire Chronicles. Don't even have a rating for this one. Can't decide how low I want to go.

Seven Gothic Tales: Review

Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen) has been a very difficult read for me. Gothic novels are not, by rights, my usual reading fare but I was drawn to this book by the very intriguing Introduction written by Dorothy Canfield. So, I grabbed it right up at the Friends of the Library Booksale. And then, when I gave into temptation and signed up for the Gothic Reading Challenge, it seemed only natural to add this one to the list. My goodness, I didn't know what I was letting myself in for.



The seven tales are very uneven. The first, "The Deluge at Norderney," is brilliant. The descriptions of the flood and the plight of the people along the coast are very striking. The tales told by the small group left to their fate in the old barn draw the reader in and hold her captive. I was completely taken in by the final twist.

"The Monkey" is one of the tales that I would say is more gothic than most. It reminds me of some of Poe's best work. And there is an element of the supernatural involved. More spine-tingling than the others.

And then there is "The Supper at Elsinore"--a true ghost story that tells the tale of a lost brother and the two sisters who essentially died when he did. The meeting of the three siblings is a very interesting take on the standard visit from the departed.

The final story that held any interest for me was "The Dreamers." Following the storyline was a bit rough...it was almost, but not quite like stream of consciousness writing. Lincoln would just start telling his tale and then he'd insert little asides. A more straight-forward telling would have been more to my taste, but the central nugget--who the mysterious woman was and what finally happened to her was worth a bit of wading in the "stream."

Dinesen is a very descriptive author. Sometimes too much so. But in the stories mentioned, she does her best job and the descriptions serve the tales well. The descriptions did not, however, produce quite the gothic feel that I was expecting--and this was particularly true in the remaining stories from the collection. She also is at her best when telling the story straight rather than following little side-stories as happens more often than necessary. I would love to be able to say more about this one, but I have been reading it off and on for so long that I've lost some of my earliest thoughts (that'll teach me to take notes). Not quite my cup of tea...three stars overall, with most of that rating being due to the four stories highlighted.

Northanger Abbey: Review

Northanger Abbey is now my second all-time favorite Jane Austen book. Pride of place goes to Persuasion. Pride and Prejudice is a fine novel, but it doesn't send me into the raptures it does so many other people; and I positively dislike Emma. Abbey has all the classic Austen elements: the lovely drawing room comedy of manners, the skewering of social class, the exposure of human frailties (particularly greed and pride in social position) and adds a delightful satire of the Gothic novels which were so popular at the time.

Catherine Morland, an unlikely heroine--as noted in the very first line, finds herself on a trip to Bath. Miss Morland has had no experience of the ways of society and soon finds herself attached to Isabella Thorpe. She is quite certain that her new friend will teach her what she needs to know and has great faith in Isabella's honesty and openness. Following Isabella's lead, she frequents the pump room and the evening dances and soon meets Mr. Henry Tilney. While she becomes more and more attached to Mr. Tilney, she is unaware that Isabella's brother John has intentions of his own. And she has no idea how John Thorpe's intentions will affect her dealings with the Tilney family later.

Eventually, Catherine is invited to stay at Northanger Abbey, home of the Tilneys, and a great friendship evolves between her and Eleanor Tilney. Catherine's Gothic taste in reading catches up with her, however, and soon she is imagining mysteries and danger in every corner. It takes a great many misunderstandings before Catherine's adventures at the Abbey are sorted out to a happy ending--which Jane Austen knows her readers are expecting: "my readers, who will see in the tell-tale compression of the pages before them, that we are all hastening together to perfect felicity." However, we do not reach that "perfect felicity" until we have witnessed the romantic chase with all of its ritual and prime motivations: ambition, greed, power, pleasure, self-interest....and, yes, even love.

This was a delight to read. As always, it is a perfect commentary on the social mores and expectations of the time. And Austen is even more pointed about it than usual--using authorial asides to make certain things clear. In some novels this might be distracting, but I did not think so here. I also enjoyed the send-up of the Gothic novel. She parodies the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing before it even came into existence. I love how inexperienced Catherine believes she can see through to the true motives behind everyone she meets....and is constantly wrong. Four stars out of five.

The Thirteenth Tale: Review

All children mythologize their birth. It is a universal trait. You want to know someone? Heart, mind and soul? Ask him to tell you about when he was born. What you get won't be the truth; it will be a story. And nothing is more telling than a story.

Vida Winter in Tales of Change and Desperation


So we're told before we even begin Diane Setterfield's novel The Thirteenth Tale. The tale is a fairly intricate one. Vida Winter, a world-renowned writer who has managed to keep her life story shrouded in mystery throughout her life, is very ill and decides to share that story with Margaret Leo, an amateur biographer. It's not that Miss Winter hasn't told her life story before....she has. Countless versions--all different. How can Margaret be sure that this time the story will be true? Each woman is hiding a secret pain, a pain that may be more similar than they know, and they strike a bargain for the story-telling. As Miss Winter begins unfolding the story, Margaret--and the reader--is mesmerized. There are gothic overtones and a legacy of strange behaviors in the Angelfield family, from Isabelle and Charles to the wild twins Adeline and Emmeline. There is also a ghost, a determined governess, a topiary garden, and a horrible fire. There are hints of James' Turn of the Screw and Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle. [But I have to say that Setterfield does a much better job with her story than Jackson did with hers.] As the story becomes more and more gothic, Margaret continues to question Miss Winter's truthfulness. She soon finds that the story is unfolding as it should and together they confront the individual ghosts that have haunted them.

This is an absolutely marvelous book. Just like Margaret in the story, I was mesmerized by the story-telling. The language and descriptions were perfect to set the stage for the gothic tale that Miss Winter has to tell. Setterfield gives full, vivid pictures with no wasted words--but every bit as much as needed. She deftly handles the various characters involved in the story and, no matter how small a part they play, allows them their moment to shine. This good, old-fashioned story-telling at its best. At its heart, it is a book about identity and family and loss. It's about endings and new beginnings. And on top of all that, it's a book that should appeal to readers. Margaret is a bibliophile and it shows. She has many little tidbits about being a reader, reading, and stories that are bang on target:

A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth.

There is something about words. In expert hands, manipulated deftly, they take you prisoner. Wind themselves around your limbs like spider silk, and when you are so enthralled you cannot move, they pierce your skin, enter your blood, numb your thoughts. Inside you they work their magic.

For me to see is to read. It has always been that way.

All reading truths that should resonate with book bloggers. In the end, this is a lovely, well-written book that I am sure to recommend over and over. It is also a book that I will grab up and buy at my earliest opportunity. Four and a half stars.

Something Wicked This Way Comes: Review

Synopsis: Few American novels written this century have endured in the heart and memory as has Ray Bradbury's unparalleled literary classic Something Wicked This Way Comes. For those who still dream and remember, for those yet to experience the hypnotic power of its dark poetry, step inside. The show is about to begin.The carnival rolls in sometime after midnight, ushering in Halloween a week early. The shrill siren song of a calliope beckons to all with a seductive promise of dreams and youth regained. In this season of dying, Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show has come to Green Town, Illinois, to destroy every life touched by its strange and sinister mystery. And two boys will discover the secret of its smoke, mazes, and mirrors; two friends who will soon know all too well the heavy cost of wishes. . .and the stuff of nightmare. [synopsis from that posted on Visual Bookshelf]

Sometimes, for some books there is a particular time that is right. For me, for Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury--that time was when I was in my early teens and was knee-deep in my science fiction craze. At that time you couldn't feed me Asimov and Bradbury and Clarke and Ellison and all the rest fast enough. I was constantly haunting Mason's Rare & Used Books in my hometown, scanning the SF bookshelves for a new (to me) book to take home and devour. I read everything by Bradbury that I could get my hands on. It started with his short story collection Dandelion Wine and didn't stop until I had read everything I could buy from Mason's plus everything the downtown and school libraries had.

And when I brought Something Wicked home from the library, it was magic. I remember reading it straight through (I probably stayed up much too late using my little pen-flashlight under the covers) and shivering with delight over the evil carnival. I had always been a tom-boy so I ran with boys and climbed up and down out of the windows in my imagination. I thoroughly enjoyed the mystic fight between good and evil that was played out in those autumn days in small town USA.

Now...all that lead-up doesn't mean that I didn't enoy myself this time around--rereading Something Wicked for the Gothic Reading Challenge (among others). But it wasn't the same. This was a more sobered reading. I've got thirty years on that teenager sneak-reading at night and I've seen too much in the world. I still appreciate the battle between good and evil. But I more keenly understand Charles Halloway when he says towards the end of the book that the evil need and the freaks--with their fear and suffering that fueled the carnival--may be here, right now, in us. That Evil only has the power that we give it. And we have the power to stop or even prevent Evil, if we only will.

Rereading Bradbury is always a pleasure--if only to immerse myself in his writing. He writes about a time that was by-gone when I first read it and is even more so now. It is charming and comfortable to sink into a past when boys were not tied by wires (or invisible lines with wireless now) to electronic games and computers--when boys snuck out at night for the harmless fun of a late-night swim or just to do a little star-gazing. And his writing is so descriptive and right that it effortlessly places you exactly where and when he wants you to be. Four stars out of five.

The Phantom of the Opera

The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux is one of those stories that everyone thinks they know. Whether they've seen the Broadway musical or Lon Chaney's silent film version, they know it's a story about a masked man who hangs out in the Paris Opera House and who falls tragically in love with a young singer, Christine Daae. Despite how closely the silent film's action follows the novel (which it suprisingly does), there are nuances to the story that don't come through. Chaney, one of the early masters of the horror film, doesn't quite convey the human nature of the opera's monster. And we never find out in the film that the Phantom has a name....Erik.

While it is true that Erik commits some very horrifying and despicable acts, the novel reveals that there is a very lonely and hurting human being behind those acts. Erik longs for one thing--to be loved for himself; to be loved like any other person; to have someone look beyond the horrible disfigurement that he carries with him always and love the real Erik. Even his mother could never love him and hold him like other mothers did their children. And, since there was no loving influence to teach him differently, Erik grows up to be a very selfish person...using the wits he has to compensate for what he doesn't have.

Although published in 1910, the book is very true to 19th century writing...there is a lot of narrative and sometimes the pace drags, but the story is worth it. There is a great gothic atmosphere in the cellars of the opera--down in the Phantom's domain. The characters of Raoul and Christine are sometimes a little flat--the earnest young lover and the innocent young singer--but the story carries them and the underlying theme of love with its power to destroy and its power to set free is what ultimately gives the novel its timeless appeal. Four stars out of five.

Lair of the White Worm: Review

Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker doesn't exactly live up to its blurb: In a tale of ancient evil, Bram Stoker creates a world of lurking horrors and bizarre denizens: a demented mesmerist, hellbent on mentally crushing the girl he loves' a gigantic kite raised to rid the land of an unnatural infestation of birds, and which receives strange commands along its string; and all the while, the great white worm slithers below, seeking its next victim...

I picked this one up in my search for a book with "white" in the title to help me complete my Color Coded Reading Challenge. White was looking to be a difficult color. The first book I picked out, Eight White Nights, I just could not finish because it was going nowhere fast. Lair looked to be going the same way. It's an interesting idea...ancient evil in the form of a great white worm (in the old sense--a snake/serpent or dragon) which can take on human form and lure men and women to their doom. Add in one heir to a local estate who is slowly going mad and for whateve reason wanting to control the girl he "loves" with hypnotism--to what purpose, we don't know. There is also a mysterious gathering of birds that creates havoc in the region until a giant hawk-shaped kite is flown to scare them. Could be a good story. But from the moment Adam Salton comes home to England to meet a great-uncle he never knew he had and gets involved with these local inhabitants, it's a long-haul to anything creepy or vaguely interesting happening. Salton takes long walks in the countryside. He talks with his uncle's elderly friend a lot. There's A LOT of talking. We have disjointed episodes where Adam is talking with his uncle's friend and then suddenly is out on walk and then just as suddenly back in the house to talk again.

I am glad I finished this one, though (and not just because it finishes off the challenge). The ending was good enough to make the read worthwhile. One might say a very explosive finale (pun intended). A couple of caveats for those who may be considering the book: It is not all that creepy, except, perhaps, in the final scenes. If you're looking for horror along the lines of Dracula, I don't personally think it matches up. Also, if you read an unedited copy, you're going to find the N-word sprinkled all over the place. In a very derogatory manner. Of course, it reflects the times--but you should be prepared. My version--from the library--had been "fixed." My main personal quibble with the story is that you have the hypnotist doing mental/psychic battle with Lilla, the girl he supposedly loves. This goes on in the first third of the book. Lilla is supported by her cousin Mimi. But then, all of a sudden, Mimi marries Adam--supposedly to make her safe from the white worm and we leave Lilla abandoned. Literally. We don't hear of her again until the final 20 pages of the book. After being so concerned about her cousin--a concern her husband shared up to this point, she suddenly leaves her alone. Did she think the hypnotist would just quit stopping by? I did not get that all.

I can't honestly say that this is an all-time favorite. I don't think I'll ever read it again. It had the makings of a really good story. Rumors are that Stoker was going a bit mad himself when he was writing this....I wouldn't be surprised. That certainly may explain the disjointed scenes. Two and a half stars out of five.

The Woman in Black: Review

The Woman in Black: A Ghost Story by Susan Hill is my second installment for the Gothic Reading Challenge. This one was much more to my liking than the first book (We Have Always Lived in the Castle). Of course, I knew what I was getting myself into because I had seen and enjoyed the play a couple of years ago. The play was magnificent--a real edge-of-your-seat, chills down your back, spine-tingler.

The book is no slouch either. Told by Arthur Kipps, an older man looking back on events of his youth, the story revolves around his trip to a lonely house on the English moors. The elderly lady who has lived there for years and who has been a client of the law firm which employs him has passed on and someone from the firm must go to the funeral and gather up all relevant papers from her isolated home. Kipps anticipates no problems--just the usual shoeboxes of bills and letters from an eccentric old woman berating her relations or shopkeepers. But the routine formalities give way to eerie events starting with the sickly-looking woman in black who appears at the funeral. Kipps soon finds that the residents of the local town are reluctant to discuss Eel Marsh House or the doings of Mrs. Alice Drablow, late owner.

Upon his visit to the estate, he encounters the woman in black once again and then events turn even more sinister--the sound of the rocking chair in the abandoned nursery, the terrifying sound of a pony and trap in the fog, and the accompanying terrified scream of a child. At first the young cosmopolitan lawyer is determined to find logical reasons behind what he encounters. And when logic fails, he still believes that if he faces the unknown, it will be less terrifying. Before he is finished at the house, Kipps will find himself taken to the edge of sanity and dragged into a nightmare world where he isn't sure what is real and what isn't. He eventually completes his mission the best he can, but not before the atmosphere takes its toll on him. The story finishes with a surprising and horrifying climax.

Susan Hill does a marvelous job building up the suspense once Kipps reaches his destination. The atmosphere around the house and grounds is exactly right and the descriptions are sure to make the reader wish for the lights to be on full and for there to be company in the room where they are reading. A thoroughly enjoyable old-fashioned ghost story. Four stars.

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

Bleah. Thanks, Snoopy (and Charles Schulz). That says everything that needs saying about Shirley Jackson's We Have Always Lived in the Castle. I could just leave the review at that. I realize that isn't very professional. But wait, I'm not a professional. I'm just your average, book-loving blogger who wants to record her thoughts on what she reads. But, you say, why did you think it was bleah? [Possible spoilers ahead...beware.]

Well, maybe because nothing happened in the first third of the book. Nothing substantial that is. Oh...Mary Katherine went to town to get library books and groceries. And she thinks the townspeople all hate her & her family. What's left of it. Okay. Great. Oh, and there's these little snippets that tell you that there used to be more people in Mary Katherine's family. Before they were all poisoned. And her sister, Constance, was accused and acquitted of the murders. Well, that ought to grab the attention, right? Not so much. Not even when you consider that I love mysteries. But quite frankly there was nothing in this book that made me the least bit curious whether Constance really did it or not, and, if not, who did. If all the build up was supposed to produce a gothic feel, then, I'm sorry Shirley Jackson, but it Did Not Work. At least not for me.

Sure, this is one weird little family which gets a whole lot weirder when Cousin Charles shows up. And there's a fire. And we find out who poisoned the family. But...I Did Not Care. There wasn't anything about this story that grabbed me. Not the characters. Not the story itself. Not the setting. Not the writing. This was a big ol' black hole of a novel--it sucked up a whole day's worth of reading and gave me nothing in return. I'm not even sure I can award it one star on the ol' rating scale. But I will...one star for giving me one read in the Gothic Reading Challenge.

Gothic Challenge 2011

2011 is right around the corner so it's time to search out and join the upcoming challenges. Or in my case, just have them fall in my lap and tempt me. This one caught my eye when I found it on Senora G's Reading, Reading and Life site and though gothic books aren't my favorite, there are times that they just hit the spot. It has its own dedicated site at Gothic Reading Challenge so check it out and sign up. There is even a list of books to get you started if you need some help (I did)

I am choosing level:

A Maniacal Frenzy - Read 10 novels with Gothic elements.

10 doesn't seem so bad and it can cross over into the Off the Shelf Challenge which asks us to read books we own or have on our TBR so I think 10 is quite doable. Maybe. It does run all year...

Here is my intended list in no particular order:

1. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (2/26/11)
2. The Woman in Black by Susan Hill (3/15/11)
3. The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (4/11/11)
4. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (6/11/11)
5. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (5/5/11)
6. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (5/28/11)
7. Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker (3/23/11)
8. Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice (9/13/11)
9. Seven Gothic Tales by Isak Dinesen (8/15/11)
10. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (7/6/11)
11. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libby Bray (Off the Shelf too)
12. Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin

Challenge Complete 9/13/11. Will probably read the other two as well--but I have fulfilled my commitment.