But wait, you say, you're the author鈥�. Let me explain.
Sometimes love happens all at once. There it is: Boom! LOVE! Other times it鈥檚 a more gradual recBut wait, you say, you're the author鈥�. Let me explain.
Sometimes love happens all at once. There it is: Boom! LOVE! Other times it鈥檚 a more gradual recognition, a process of allowing yourself to fall into the feeling鈥攊t鈥檚 a form of humility really, saying to yourself: right here, in this messy reality, is where I鈥檒l choose to reside. This is how I鈥檇 describe my complicated feelings about my own writing.
For years I would have given everything I wrote one or zero stars, and deservedly so, because for years everything I wrote was terrible. I took uncommon glee in reading through a 300 page manuscript that had taken me more than a year to write, and deciding that the only thing worth saving was the opening paragraph (yes, this happened). It鈥檚 taken a painfully long time to learn to recognize that, well, not EVERYTHING was terrible, that here and there a paragraph or a phrase or more might be salvageable if I only came back to it later with a bit more patience, and that sometimes I ought NOT to trust my most savage and critical instincts. In other words, I had to learn to love my creations, to give them a chance, because sometimes good writing doesn鈥檛 happen all at once, sometimes you鈥檝e got to keep coming back again and again and not give up and just hope you reach a point where something breaks through your own skepticism and allows you recognize that yes, this is getting somewhere, and yes, it鈥檚 not half bad. So I鈥檓 giving this 5 stars because I can finally say I鈥檓 proud of something I wrote. It鈥檚 not perfect, sure, and it might fail for some, but I love it all the same, because I鈥檝e watched it grow up from nothing, from an inchoate burbling notion that I had no idea how to handle into a piece of fiction that now exists on its own in the big bad world, without my worrying and nagging guidance....more
This book is such a wicked pleasure. I give it four stars only to distinguish it from We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill HousThis book is such a wicked pleasure. I give it four stars only to distinguish it from We Have Always Lived in the Castle and The Haunting of Hill House, which are really the pinnacle of Shirley Jackson's art. But the elements are all here, in The Sundial: the old house, the sense of decay and doom, family legends, oddball characters, the blurring of reality and magic, and a comedy of manners so black and biting that it makes you wince with pleasure and pain. The novel opens with a family returning to its estate after the funeral of Lionel Halloran, the heir to the fortune, who was pushed down the stairs by his own mother. The first words uttered by the mother? "It's over," Mrs. Halloran said. And then, to her husband, the young man's father: "He's gone, Richard," she said. "Everything went off beautifully."
Ouch. Soon one of the family gets a vision of the world ending, and the rest of the novel is spent busily preparing for this monumental happening, all lorded over by Mrs. Halloran, who grows into the role of leader of this small band of expected survivors. It's all so witty and dark, and then the end (which I won't reveal) serves to deepen the entire work, as in a way it circles back to its sad beginning. So while all the elements didn't come together quite as seamlessly as in We Have Always Lived in the Castle or The Haunting of Hill House, this is still a magnificent work, and one that I will no doubt re-read with pleasure....more
This was a buddy-read with James (Jay), author of Watching Glass Shatter, and I'm so happy we read this. I'd rate it 4.5* just to distinguish it from This was a buddy-read with James (Jay), author of Watching Glass Shatter, and I'm so happy we read this. I'd rate it 4.5* just to distinguish it from Rebecca, which gets the full five.
The book actually began a little slowly for me, and it felt almost discombobulated, as if DuMaurier were shuffling toward the storyline. But then Rachel appears and everything clicks masterfully into gear. DuMaurier expertly conjures a brooding, ambiguous atmosphere, and from the very beginning we wonder about this bewitching woman who seizes our narrator, young Philip, in the grip of her Italianate charm. The fact that she may have been responsible for Philip's guardian's death is something he dismisses with the enthusiasm of the young, until....
Plot summaries abound, and I won't add to them here. The language of the book is utterly beguiling, those languid fluid sentences sweep us through the plot and make us take notice of all sorts of subtleties: the cut of a dress, the gleam of an eye, the inflection of a voice, and of course the natural world in all its infinite variety: "The wind of the day before had blown itself up-country, taking the rain with it, and at noon the sun had broken through and the sky was clear. There was a salty brightness in the air, lending a zest to walking, and you could hear the running swell of the sea as it broke upon the rocks fringing the bay."
Once I got past the first few pages, I felt myself in the hands of an expert storyteller. The plot moved through its gears with precision, and even when I knew or sensed what was coming, it was a sublime pleasure to see DuMaurier spin it out, taking her time, building suspense so perfectly.
Oddly enough, though, it was the very expert nature of the narrative that makes this book, for me, slightly less interesting than Rebecca. Rebecca has always seemed to me almost Sui generis, and it enchanted me equally yet surprised me more; it seemed more complex and difficult to pin down, a narrative of almost infinite slipperiness and ambiguity. My Cousin Rachel, by contrast, is less layered and more straightforward, even though it has its own twists and turns and beautiful ambiguities.
Still, this is a book that will reside with me for some time and one that I'll no doubt return to, if only to see and admire how DuMaurier handles a certain aspect of plotting or character, how she masterfully drops her clues into the narrative stream, how she keeps the pages turning, knowing exactly when to slow down and admire a landscape, and when to speed us through. This is a thoroughly pleasurable book, and one that I highly recommend....more
This is one of the more structurally unusual of Poe's tales. And that's saying a lot! It begins as an essay in which Poe describes the impulse to do wThis is one of the more structurally unusual of Poe's tales. And that's saying a lot! It begins as an essay in which Poe describes the impulse to do wrong precisely because we know it's wrong. But wait, you might say. That's crazy! People are rational! They'd never do that! This is what Poe called "the pure arrogance of the reason"--the arrogance to assume that people are always reasonable, that if you only explained what's right and what's wrong to them, they'd choose to do what's right. Poe had the keen insight into human nature to say that's foolishly naive.
As Poe writes: "Nor will this overwhelming tendency to do wrong for the wrong's sake, admit of analysis, or resolution into ulterior elements. It is a radical, a primitive impulse--elementary." He uses as a famous example a person standing "upon the brink of a precipice" who is somehow drawn to the edge, desiring to fall precisely because "it involves that one most ghastly and loathsome of all the most ghastly and loathsome images of death and suffering which have ever presented themselves to our imagination."
As an aside, we might also see this same impulse on a national level, as when Orwell writes about the appeal of fascism, in which a leader promises struggle, danger, and death, "and as a result a whole nation flings itself at his feet." But that's a discussion for another day.
In this tale, Poe's narrator turns from his essay to his personal story, in which he claims to himself be a victim of this "Imp of the Perverse"--this primitive desire to do wrong. Of course this might simply be the narrator's way of disavowing any personal responsibility for his crime, which consisted of killing someone by means of a poisoned candle in order to inherit their estate. But if you think about it, this crime itself really isn't an example of the Imp of the Perverse at work, because the narrator did have an ulterior motive, namely to get the estate. No, the true irony of this tale is that the Imp of the Perverse only comes into play afterwards, when the narrator can't contain his impulse to shout out his confession in a crowd. In other words, what's really "perverse" in the narrator's mind isn't killing someone, but confessing. Which is itself perverse! Oh, my mind boggles. I tip my hat to Poe, and to his narrator, for another fantastic tale....more
Here is another classic Poe tale of dissolution and madness. It's very similar to The Tell-Tale Heart, yet different in interesting ways. For one thinHere is another classic Poe tale of dissolution and madness. It's very similar to The Tell-Tale Heart, yet different in interesting ways. For one thing, this tale is told from a distant, calm, and indeed sane perspective. Unlike The Tell-Tale Heart, which begins with the narrator breathlessly trying to convince the reader of his sanity, here the narrator calmly states that "I neither expect nor solicit belief" in his tale, but that because he is to die tomorrow (presumably to be executed), he wishes to "unburthen my soul" of the events that "have terrified--have tortured--have destroyed me."
We begin with a mundane account of the narrator's early years. He was known from a young age for loving pets. What a good guy! After his marriage, his wife gets him birds, fish, a dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat. And that's where things start to go wrong--with that cat--or rather with the narrator's perception of it. There's a hint that the narrator starts abusing alcohol, and then starts abusing the cat, and when the cat bites him a little, "a demon instantly possessed me" and he cuts out one of its eyes.
***spoilers to follow***
Quickly the descent into madness gathers force. He hangs the cat, not because it did him any wrong, but because of precisely the opposite: he "hung it because I knew that it had loved me, and because I felt it had given me no reason of offense;--hung it because I knew that in so doing I was committing a sin." It's the transgression itself that he can't resist. When he gets another cat, he can't help feeling the same way toward it, and the pressure builds inside him until he takes an axe to it, and when his wife stops him, he kills her with the axe, bricks up her corpse inside the wall, and when the police come and search his house, they don't find her until he can't help himself--he taps the wall until there's a wailing shriek from inside, and the police uncover the corpse and there is the cat too, "whose informing voice had consigned me to the hangman."
There's an interesting and perhaps obvious use of symbolism throughout--the voice from the bricked-up tomb is like the repressed voices inside him that caused him to do these evil deeds, and the black cat is of course a famous symbol of superstition and bad luck. Nonetheless, this tale isn't too heavy-handed about any of this. It works on a purely narrative level in the same deliciously macabre way of Poe's best work, and provides another keen insight into irrationality and the demons lurking inside the human heart. ...more
Typically this is considered a tale of revenge. I'm going to go out on a limb and argue that it's not. The only notion we have of revenge--of the narrTypically this is considered a tale of revenge. I'm going to go out on a limb and argue that it's not. The only notion we have of revenge--of the narrator, Montresor, actually being wronged--comes in the wonderfully vague opening sentence: "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge." It's Montresor himself who insists this is a revenge tale, but of course he's the ultimate unreliable narrator, so we shouldn't take him at his word. Notice that we get not a single detail concerning any of these injuries or insults. Typically you'd expect someone plotting revenge to stew over all those little details ad nauseam. Instead, we only know that Fortunato is a wine connoisseur and that "[i]n painting and gemmary Fortunato, like his countrymen, was a quack." It seems that, at some level, Montresor simply doesn't like Fortunato (or perhaps doesn't like all Italians, especially Fortunato) and decides to kill him for no other reason than that. You also get the sense that Fortunato is more successful than the narrator (his name, Fortunato, isn't particularly subtle), so perhaps the killing is simply the result of jealousy. There's also that wonderful scene where Fortunato makes a Masonic sign, which the narrator doesn't understand (and call "grotesque"), and Montresor replies by producing a trowel from beneath his clothes and saying he's a mason, too. A grim joke, but one that points again to the jealousy burning inside him.
OK, enough argument! The most important point is that this a wonderfully macabre tale that reprises several of Poe's major themes. I won't spoil the ending. I'll just say that it's a tale that leaves you thinking long after the reading is done. Not just thinking, but feeling: the damp caverns, the piles of bones, and the ever thickening "nitre" that "hangs like moss upon the vaults."...more
What a quick little stab of the macabre this tale is! It's a classic example of the unreliable narrator, who tries desperately to convince the reader What a quick little stab of the macabre this tale is! It's a classic example of the unreliable narrator, who tries desperately to convince the reader of his sanity even as he stalks, kills, dismembers, and buries an old man for no other reason than that the man's eye "resembled that of a vulture." Of course the harder he tries to convince the reader of his sanity, the more insane you realize he is: "You should have seen how wisely I proceeded--with what caution--what what foresight--with what dissimulation I went to work!"
This tale is also interesting in its use of the Ancient Greek technique of beginning "in medias res"--or in the middle of things. There's no preamble, no setting of the scene. Here's how the story begins: "True!--nervous--very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?" You immediately get the sense that the narrator is reacting to something or someone, perhaps an unnamed interlocutor who's just told him he's mad. Or perhaps he's simply arguing or contending with himself? With a narrator like this, you never know, which is why I love unreliable narrators. There's no stability, no objectivity--everything is a shifting sand of the mind. ...more
Fascinating and lurid allegory about a group of people who, on the invitation of "Prince Prospero," lock themselves within a "castellated abbey" to esFascinating and lurid allegory about a group of people who, on the invitation of "Prince Prospero," lock themselves within a "castellated abbey" to escape the Red Death. The inhabitants of the abbey are provided "all the appliances of pleasure," and boy do they know how to party: "there were buffoons, there were improvisatori, there were ballet-dancers, there were musicians, there was Beauty, there was wine." It all culminates in a huge masked ball held in several colorful and gaudy chambers: "There was much glare and glitter and piquancy and phantasm.... There was much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust." Then who shows up, of course, but a figure dressed as a Red Death victim: "His vesture was dabbled in blood--and his broad brow, with all the features of the face, was besprinkled with the scarlet horror." Prince Prospero becomes seriously pissed-off at this figure because he's spoiling all the fun, everyone is scared and freaked out, but when he confronts him he sees that there's literally nothing behind the mask, and he drops dead, and soon everyone else does too.
So what is Poe saying here? (I find myself searching for the answer to this question because of the allegorical nature of the work itself.) For one thing, that you can't cheat death, but I think there's something more profound going on, a sort of sociological take on how people ignore the suffering of others at their peril. That we can't really wall ourselves off and party in the face of others' suffering because that suffering will inevitably reach us too. We can't ignore others' pain or pretend it doesn't exist or look the other way. ...more
Wow, what a fantastic story. You have all the gothic elements crammed in here: a haunted (perhaps even sentient) house, a mysterious illness, madness,Wow, what a fantastic story. You have all the gothic elements crammed in here: a haunted (perhaps even sentient) house, a mysterious illness, madness, death, entombment, a dungeon, a violent storm, a cursed family, hints of possible incest (?), resurrection, bizarre poetry, and a story-within-the-story about a knight slaying a dragon. And binding this all together is Poe's inimitable style and narrative drive. It's horror of the creepy, atmospheric kind (the best kind, IMHO), the kind that gets under your skin and makes you feel it in a thousand subtle ways....more
This is a wonderful illumination of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, told from the perspective of the housemaid. Valerie Martin somehow inhabits the original This is a wonderful illumination of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, told from the perspective of the housemaid. Valerie Martin somehow inhabits the original at the same time she makes it new, and the result is a fresh gothic tale that's steeped in the original horror. Martin is an incredibly sure-handed writer, and her prose sings....more
I'm reading this book again to get back in touch with some of the early English gothic novels. I'm struck, in these early pages, by the extreme romantI'm reading this book again to get back in touch with some of the early English gothic novels. I'm struck, in these early pages, by the extreme romanticization and lush description of nature. The natural world has a sort of earthy goodness that draws Emily and her father in. By contrast, the characters who are more urbane are invariably depicted as manipulative and ruthless....more
I've reviewed the tales I read by their individual titles, and I won't repeat my reviews here. Let me just say that Poe is an under-appreciated masterI've reviewed the tales I read by their individual titles, and I won't repeat my reviews here. Let me just say that Poe is an under-appreciated master. Not just under-appreciated by many readers today, for whom he's synonymous with being a sort of proto-schlock-horror writer, but under-appreciated by readers and even famous writers of his day. Henry James infamously said that "[a]n enthusiasm for Poe is the mark of a decidedly primitive stage of reflection." Granted, James was young at the time, but still, that's no excuse. Even worse was Ralph Waldo Emerson's dismissal of Poe as the "jingle man." These writers (whom I otherwise admire) thought of Poe as immature, but I think they make the classic mistake of confusing the writer with his subject. Poe's characters are often high-strung and immature in their way, but Poe is never without an ironic distance from them. Many of the narrators of his tales are classic "unreliable narrators," and Poe wants his readers to see them as such--to see behind the masks they don--and it's there that his tales gather most force....more
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