O, to return to those gentle days of yesteryear when young women of education and good circumstance had nothing better to do than sketch and take nature walks and write melancholy poetry. And when they craved excitement, they could turn to this romantic gothic novel by Ann Radcliffe, with its young heroine who bravely faces one danger after another and experiences many seemingly-supernatural visitations, in between her sketching and walking and poetry writing, only fainting every 20 pages or so.
Radcliffe's novels were tremendously popular in the late 1700s, so much so that Jane Austin even satirized a typical Radcliffe reader in her novel Northanger Abbey. I can only conclude that the young female novel readers of that time were so bored that they were willing to slog through pages and pages of tedium to experience a few chills and thrills.
Out of the 670 pages of this novel's very small print, we have perhaps 250 pages of actual story. So what about the rest? Here's an approximate rundown:
*300 pages of nature descriptions of various landscapes in France and Italy. As it turns out, only good and honorable people appreciate nature; people of doubtful honor or breeding don't properly appreciate it, and really dishonorable people don't even notice it or actually dislike it.
*50 pages of melancholy poetry composed by the heroine in response to nature and events.
*10 pages of repetitions of the word "melancholy." No kidding. Almost every page has at least one "melancholy," and many pages feature it twice.
*30 pages of accounts of fainting episodes. All manner of happenings can bring on insensibility, not just frightening events.
*30 pages of accounts of people dying and the heroine's response to the deaths.
However, in those 250 pages of story, Radcliffe does provide an interesting plot line, suspense, and several cliffhangers. In the most interesting section of the book her heroine is imprisoned in the crumbling Castle of Udolpho, where she faces a suitably heartless villain and his band of banditto, some of whom would like to ravish her! It is there, also, that she sees something supremely frightful beneath a black veil! The description of the sight and its explanation is withheld until the last pages of the book.
My conclusion is that Ann Radcliffe was the Stephenie Meyer of her time, with a huge readership for a mediocre talent. Just as the Twilight series has spawned a myriad of imitators, so did Radcliffe's fake supernatural. All Radcliffe's creepy events are explained rationally, and as for Meyer, it turns out that vampires are really pretty sexy guys.
Saturday, August 10, 2013
Tuesday, August 6, 2013
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
I have long known about this book, because it is often mentioned as the first Gothic novel. Published in 1764, the story inspired many a writer of the time, and its influence extends even up to today. (Or so I have read!) I like Gothic novels, so I finally decided to read the Founding Father.
Indeed, here we find many of the stock elements of the genre: an ancient, many-roomed castle with secret passages and subterranean vaults, mysterious and ghostly happenings, long-buried secrets, hidden identities, a curse on a family, fair and virtuous damsels in distress, a dastardly and vile villain with evil designs, and a manly and brave young hero.
Yes, the elements are all here, but the result for this modern reader is not what Walpole intended, nor indeed what was evidently experienced by readers of the time. Instead of finding the book to be creepy or scarey or suspenseful, I found it to be quite funny, almost as if it were a spoof of the Gothic. I concede that one must give Walpole credit for coming up with a new scenario and a fresh combining of realism and fantastical romanticism, but I don't believe he was a very good writer.
The story begins on the wedding day of the fair Isabella to the sickly Conrad, son of Manfred, Prince of Oranto. Before the ceremony can begin, (get ready for this!) a giant (we're talking really, really big) helmet falls out of the sky and crushes the proposed groom. This happens on page 2, and it was impossible for me to take the book seriously from then on.
As it turns out, Manfred himself has designs on the fair Isabella, and she has to flee through underground passages to escape his unnatural desires. A myriad of new characters and new manifestations of the supernatural occur before all ends well (kind of).
I would recommend this novel purely on its academic interest as the progenitor of a genre, but for thrills and chills and even for immersion in a story, it fails abysmally.
Indeed, here we find many of the stock elements of the genre: an ancient, many-roomed castle with secret passages and subterranean vaults, mysterious and ghostly happenings, long-buried secrets, hidden identities, a curse on a family, fair and virtuous damsels in distress, a dastardly and vile villain with evil designs, and a manly and brave young hero.
Yes, the elements are all here, but the result for this modern reader is not what Walpole intended, nor indeed what was evidently experienced by readers of the time. Instead of finding the book to be creepy or scarey or suspenseful, I found it to be quite funny, almost as if it were a spoof of the Gothic. I concede that one must give Walpole credit for coming up with a new scenario and a fresh combining of realism and fantastical romanticism, but I don't believe he was a very good writer.
The story begins on the wedding day of the fair Isabella to the sickly Conrad, son of Manfred, Prince of Oranto. Before the ceremony can begin, (get ready for this!) a giant (we're talking really, really big) helmet falls out of the sky and crushes the proposed groom. This happens on page 2, and it was impossible for me to take the book seriously from then on.
As it turns out, Manfred himself has designs on the fair Isabella, and she has to flee through underground passages to escape his unnatural desires. A myriad of new characters and new manifestations of the supernatural occur before all ends well (kind of).
I would recommend this novel purely on its academic interest as the progenitor of a genre, but for thrills and chills and even for immersion in a story, it fails abysmally.
Texas Vendetta by Elmer Kelton
Although I am not generally a fan of Western novels, I enjoy reading an Elmer Kelton Western from time to time because they are well done and I can trust that they are historically accurate. This one is part of his Texas Rangers series, and features young Ranger Andy Pickard, who had been raised by the Comanche as a captive. The events occur following the Civil War and Reconstruction period, when the Rangers became involved in law enforcement rather than in fighting Indians.
Pickard and an ill-tempered fellow Ranger are called upon to deliver a prisoner to the sheriff of a neighboring country, where the man is wanted for the murder of one of his neighbors. As it turns out, the killing was done as part of a blood feud, and Pickard lands right in the middle between the family of the dead man and the family of the accused murderer.
In Kelton's Old West, very little is all white or all black. Sometimes the lines between right and wrong and lawful and unlawful are very blurred. Sometimes good people do bad things and sometimes bad people are not as bad as they might seem. In other words, Kelton's novels are like real life. And that's one thing that sets him apart from many others who write in this genre.
Kelton is also adept at providing excitement and suspense, and his dialogue is flawless. Even though I am not a historian, I have been informed by those who are that his depictions of early Texas are always accurate and based on actual research.
The Western Writers of America honored Kelton as the Greatest Western Writer of All Time. Texas lost a treasure when he died in 2009 at the age of 83. Enough said....
Pickard and an ill-tempered fellow Ranger are called upon to deliver a prisoner to the sheriff of a neighboring country, where the man is wanted for the murder of one of his neighbors. As it turns out, the killing was done as part of a blood feud, and Pickard lands right in the middle between the family of the dead man and the family of the accused murderer.
In Kelton's Old West, very little is all white or all black. Sometimes the lines between right and wrong and lawful and unlawful are very blurred. Sometimes good people do bad things and sometimes bad people are not as bad as they might seem. In other words, Kelton's novels are like real life. And that's one thing that sets him apart from many others who write in this genre.
Kelton is also adept at providing excitement and suspense, and his dialogue is flawless. Even though I am not a historian, I have been informed by those who are that his depictions of early Texas are always accurate and based on actual research.
The Western Writers of America honored Kelton as the Greatest Western Writer of All Time. Texas lost a treasure when he died in 2009 at the age of 83. Enough said....
Wednesday, July 31, 2013
Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami
As he does in several other of his books, Murakami here frames his novel around more than one story and tells it in alternating chapters. We have the split-brained human data processor of "Hard-Boiled Wonderland," who encounters a mystery, goons who want to do him in, harrowing and dangerous adventures, and seductive females who try to entice him into bed. In the "End of the World" sections, we have a new arrival into a mysterious walled town who has been separated from his shadow and who is assigned the task of dreamreading from the skulls of unicorns. Of course, the author ultimately brings the stories together. In contrast to others of his novels, this time Murakami actually provides a pseudo-scientific rationale for the strange events. Strangely enough, I prefer his usual open-ended conclusions when no explanation is provided and the reader is left to wonder.
Murakami is tremendously popular among younger people in Japan, possibly because he is such a departure from the usual. He is funny; he is seemingly entranced with English language music and film and literature; he is not restrained, but over-the-top. Though he may bring to mind some serious considerations (here, the nature of the mind), he never uses a serious tone. He is whimsical; he is ultra-hip.
I really enjoy Murakami, even though I seldom understand what is going on, exactly.
Murakami is tremendously popular among younger people in Japan, possibly because he is such a departure from the usual. He is funny; he is seemingly entranced with English language music and film and literature; he is not restrained, but over-the-top. Though he may bring to mind some serious considerations (here, the nature of the mind), he never uses a serious tone. He is whimsical; he is ultra-hip.
I really enjoy Murakami, even though I seldom understand what is going on, exactly.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
A Purple Place for Dying by John D. MacDonald
In this third book of the Travis McGee series, MacDonald takes his hero to a desert town in Arizona, where he meets a potential client who wants his help in recovering money she believes her husband stole from her. Just as he is deciding not to take the job, she is shot and killed right in front of him. Of course, rather than getting out of town as quickly as possible, Trav stays to unravel the mystery of who killed her.
I was unexpectedly impressed by the first novel in this detective series, The Deep Blue Good-Bye, finding it to be much superior for the genre. Unfortunately, the second and third (this one) of the series seem to me to be not much out of the ordinary--competently written, but with little else to recommend them.
A couple of things really disturbed me here: It is revealed that the dead client's husband habitually paddled her behind until she could barely sit down when she "misbehaved." But here's the disturbing part--neither Trav nor anyone else seems to find this in any way wrong or abusive. The other thing--a reclusive, obsessive, sexually repressed, and otherwise neurotic young woman in brought to normality through the healing power of Trav's lovemaking. It would seem that he should hire out as a sexual therapist rather than as a recoverer of lost things, because he is very good at healing damaged women through his sexual ministrations. These ideas about male-female relationship seem to be severely out of date even for 1964, the year the book was written.
A fast and effortless read with a bit of suspense. That's about it.
I was unexpectedly impressed by the first novel in this detective series, The Deep Blue Good-Bye, finding it to be much superior for the genre. Unfortunately, the second and third (this one) of the series seem to me to be not much out of the ordinary--competently written, but with little else to recommend them.
A couple of things really disturbed me here: It is revealed that the dead client's husband habitually paddled her behind until she could barely sit down when she "misbehaved." But here's the disturbing part--neither Trav nor anyone else seems to find this in any way wrong or abusive. The other thing--a reclusive, obsessive, sexually repressed, and otherwise neurotic young woman in brought to normality through the healing power of Trav's lovemaking. It would seem that he should hire out as a sexual therapist rather than as a recoverer of lost things, because he is very good at healing damaged women through his sexual ministrations. These ideas about male-female relationship seem to be severely out of date even for 1964, the year the book was written.
A fast and effortless read with a bit of suspense. That's about it.
Friday, July 26, 2013
Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler
Despite the title, this is not the story of Sarah Canary, the excessively ugly white woman speaking in indecipherable hoots and trills who wanders into the camp in the woods of a group of Chinese railroad workers. Rather, it is the story of those who react to the mystery of her appearance and actions, each imagining her as something different. Is she a demon lover, an escaped murderer, a wild woman raised apart from civilization, a woman driven to madness by a perfidious man, a creature of supernatural or extraterrestrial origin?
So this is the story of the young railroad worker Chin, who unaccountably feels responsible for Sarah Canary; of B.J., an escapee from a lunatic asylum, who follows Chin because with him he feels real; of Adelaide, a feminist lecturing about the right of a woman to enjoy sex, who believes Sarah to be the victim of a man's domineering. Opposing them in their efforts to protect Sarah Canary is Harold, a survivor of the Civil War's Andersonville Prison Camp, who wants to use her in a traveling freak show. Numerous adventures and picturesque characters ensue, as the trio of heroes tries to bring Sarah to a place of safety, thwarted by the war-damaged Harold. All of this takes place in the Northwest and in California right after the Civil War.
Many reviewers have caught the correspondences between this tale and The Wizard of Oz. (I wish I had not read reviews before reading the book, so that I could have seen if I would have caught it unaided.) We have Chin, who has suppressed his emotions; B.J., who has lost his wits; and Adelaide, who pretends to be brave but actually has no courage.
Many themes run through the novel (almost too many): A person can become an alien from mainstream society in many ways; stories are often archetypical and repeat themselves throughout the years; time may have progressed but attitudes not so much; women were, and still are, considered as almost a different species from men.
This book is often considered to be science fiction, but I can't imagine why, since Sarah Canary's origins, extraterrestrial or otherwise, are never revealed. Maybe she came from SOMEWHERE ELSE, but maybe not. I would classify it as magical realism, along with Murakami and suchlike.
The writing is often creative and includes some memorable bits, but as a whole, the story begins to drag somewhat with the piling on of adventures. Fowler did an excellent job of taking the reader into the mistrustful mind of Chin and the clouded mind of B.J., so that by the end we care about them. The ending is more than a little anticlimactic.
The final verdict--some good summer reading, but I will never read it again.
So this is the story of the young railroad worker Chin, who unaccountably feels responsible for Sarah Canary; of B.J., an escapee from a lunatic asylum, who follows Chin because with him he feels real; of Adelaide, a feminist lecturing about the right of a woman to enjoy sex, who believes Sarah to be the victim of a man's domineering. Opposing them in their efforts to protect Sarah Canary is Harold, a survivor of the Civil War's Andersonville Prison Camp, who wants to use her in a traveling freak show. Numerous adventures and picturesque characters ensue, as the trio of heroes tries to bring Sarah to a place of safety, thwarted by the war-damaged Harold. All of this takes place in the Northwest and in California right after the Civil War.
Many reviewers have caught the correspondences between this tale and The Wizard of Oz. (I wish I had not read reviews before reading the book, so that I could have seen if I would have caught it unaided.) We have Chin, who has suppressed his emotions; B.J., who has lost his wits; and Adelaide, who pretends to be brave but actually has no courage.
Many themes run through the novel (almost too many): A person can become an alien from mainstream society in many ways; stories are often archetypical and repeat themselves throughout the years; time may have progressed but attitudes not so much; women were, and still are, considered as almost a different species from men.
This book is often considered to be science fiction, but I can't imagine why, since Sarah Canary's origins, extraterrestrial or otherwise, are never revealed. Maybe she came from SOMEWHERE ELSE, but maybe not. I would classify it as magical realism, along with Murakami and suchlike.
The writing is often creative and includes some memorable bits, but as a whole, the story begins to drag somewhat with the piling on of adventures. Fowler did an excellent job of taking the reader into the mistrustful mind of Chin and the clouded mind of B.J., so that by the end we care about them. The ending is more than a little anticlimactic.
The final verdict--some good summer reading, but I will never read it again.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
Light by M. John Harrison
I'm pretty sure this is a very good book, because I kept wanting to keep reading even though most of the time I had not a clue as to what was actually going on. One of the cover blurbs says, "M. John Harrison is the only writer on Earth equally attuned to the essential strangeness of both quantum physics and the attritional banalities of modern urban life." Out of all that, I got only the "essential strangeness" part.
Imagine a soap opera set in the future, with the plot twists depending on the principles of quantum physics. That pretty much sums up the novel. The writing is most skillful, however, and the story and characters are well developed, so that even a reader totally ignorant of science matters can become involved.
The plot has three strands: *Michael Kearney in 1999, a serial killer who develops the technology enabling deep space travel. He is frequently visited by an overcoated woman with a horse's skull for a head, known as the Shrander. *Ed Chianese in 2400, a ex-adventurer and space pilot who is addicted to alternate reality tanks. He becomes an employee in the circus of Sandra Shen (an almost-anagram of Shrander) as a prophet of the future. *Seria Mau in 2400, a modified and wired-in pilot on a K-ship, who is no longer quite human. She is searching for a Dr. Haends (another almost-anagram of Shrander) who may be able to help her regain her humanity. For most of the book, it is not apparent what, if anything, these stories have in common, but in the end everything all comes together. Except that I do not really understand exactly what happened. Maybe if I knew quantum physics. Or maybe not.
I am reminded of the Buffalo Springfield song from the '60s: "Something is happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear." I enjoyed the book anyway.
Imagine a soap opera set in the future, with the plot twists depending on the principles of quantum physics. That pretty much sums up the novel. The writing is most skillful, however, and the story and characters are well developed, so that even a reader totally ignorant of science matters can become involved.
The plot has three strands: *Michael Kearney in 1999, a serial killer who develops the technology enabling deep space travel. He is frequently visited by an overcoated woman with a horse's skull for a head, known as the Shrander. *Ed Chianese in 2400, a ex-adventurer and space pilot who is addicted to alternate reality tanks. He becomes an employee in the circus of Sandra Shen (an almost-anagram of Shrander) as a prophet of the future. *Seria Mau in 2400, a modified and wired-in pilot on a K-ship, who is no longer quite human. She is searching for a Dr. Haends (another almost-anagram of Shrander) who may be able to help her regain her humanity. For most of the book, it is not apparent what, if anything, these stories have in common, but in the end everything all comes together. Except that I do not really understand exactly what happened. Maybe if I knew quantum physics. Or maybe not.
I am reminded of the Buffalo Springfield song from the '60s: "Something is happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear." I enjoyed the book anyway.
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