14 minute read
Arts: Literary Review
The Vampyre by John Polidori
LIAM ELVISH | LITERARY REVIEWS EDITOR Source: Igam Ogam – Unsplash.com
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John Polidori’s short story, The Vampyre, first published in 1819 in the New Monthly It tells the story of Lord Ruthven, a dashing and sinister English aristocrat with ‘a reputation for a winning tongue’, whose Magazine, was just one product of the famous ‘meeting’ of English writers (including Romantic poets Lord Byron and Percy Shelley) at the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva in Switzerland in 1816, the literary significance of which cannot be overstated. A ghost-story competition was announced, and each participant set about composing a horror-fuelled tale to impress the entourage. shrewd womanising attracts the attention of Aubrey, a wealthy and honourable young gentleman involving himself in high society circles. Aubrey, upon witnessing the death of Ruthven during their travels in rural Europe, subsequently sees the Lord reappear in London, assuming a new identity and engaged to his own sister. Ultimately unable to prevent the marriage from occurring, the tale ends in tragic and horrific circumstances, standing as a prototype for future fictional works within the genre.
From this symposium came Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, her novel of a scientifically created monster becoming a beacon for lovers of the horror and science fiction genres. Polidori’s work has become lesser-known, but no-less invaluable. Building upon the Gothic romance prevalent in Horace Walpole’s The Castle of Otranto and the novels of Ann Radcliffe, Polidori (a medical practitioner by training) fuses an underlying subtext of lustful intrigue with an analytical narrative which would later be adopted by writers such as Robert Louis Stevenson and Arthur Conan Doyle. Yet it is the central antagonist who warrants the focus of the reader. Polidori, as travelling companion to Byron in 1816, was undoubtedly influenced by his friend’s persona in the creation of his vampiric character; indeed, the figure of Ruthven has often been described by literary scholars as exhibiting ‘Byronic’ traits, the suave demeanour, sexual intensity, and adventurous daring so encompassing of the poet that we can perhaps forgive the original publishers in 1819 for initially, and erroneously, attributing the work to Byron, before rectifying this mistake in reprints.
Uncanny happenings in Haruki Murakami’s After Dark
REBECCA WEIGLER | CONTENT WRITER Written some eighty years before Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Polidori’s work can rightly lay claim to being the very first vampire story, ushering in a fictional craze which continues well into the Twenty First century with the emergence of The Vampire Chronicles and Twilight, to True Blood and beyond.
The Oxford World’s Classics edition includes ‘Other Tales of the Macabre’ from the late Romantic and early Victorian periods, which are of considerable literary merit.
Haruki Murakami is no stranger to the world of supernatural writing and is certainly a master of his craft. Taking on an eerie and Gothic tone, Murakami draws readers into a text where the omniscient narrator continuously uses ‘we’ and ‘our’, inviting us to experience the real-time events as if we are present in the very room. What occurs in the cleverly constructed chapters of After Dark is nothing short of a blurring of the line between reality and mysticism.
The novel opens with Mari Asai, one of the novel’s protagonists, reading and smoking in a Denny’s diner setting, perhaps a symbol of the calm before the storm. She encounters both Takahashi Tetsuya, a trombone-playing teenager who seems to recognise her after attempting to initiate a relationship with her sister Eri, and Kaoru, a manager of a love-hotel. Kaoru requires Mari’s help in assisting with a situation at the hotel, where a young Chinese woman has been beaten by a client and the Japanese staff are unable to communicate with her. Using her ability to speak both Japanese and Chinese, Mari agrees to help break down the events of the night and track down the perpetrator.
The question of what is actually occurring in After Dark rings throughout the novel. Uncanny happenings bleed throughout the chapters, such as a long-term, yet not fatal, state of sleep for Eri Asai, sister of the conscious and active protagonist. In addition to this, the space in which Eri Asai is sleeping in is home to a room with a mysterious male figure, who appears when an evidently unplugged television set suddenly whirs to life. It is implied that there is another world beyond the one in which the events are unfolding, and as the novel proceeds, other strange happenings secure this truth. Each chapter in After Dark begins by noting the time in which the event is taking place and subsequently detailing the surroundings, starting with short introductory sentences. There is acknowledgement of sound, interior details, and character movements, all allowing us to picture the scene before the chapter commences. The narrator communicates with the reader about what ‘we’ collectively see within the room, often through a hypothetical and mysterious moving camera lens. It is this captivating narrative style which makes the novel simultaneously sinister and brilliant.
While the language is certainly not convoluted, as supported by the real-time structure and intricate descriptions, the events are often puzzling and leave readers trying to connect the dots of one fateful Tokyo night.
Murakami employs various symbols, such as music, night, and technology, and they all seem to play an equally important part in figuring out what is happening to the characters.
With the setting of a paranormal night, carefully constructed timelines, and mysterious soul-stealing figures, After Dark is an October reading list staple for anyone who wishes to be spooked and it is, ultimately, a literary masterpiece.
Pet Sematary by Stephen King
MILLIE GARRAWAY | CONTENT WRITER
Nominated for a World Fantasy Award for Best Novel in 1986, Stephen King once again produces a modern classic with his seventeenth novel, Pet Sematary. Based on true events in King’s life, Pet Sematary is arguably a blueprint for prospering horror writers as it fulfils readers’ sinful pleasures of stomach-turning literature. Although an American novelist, King’s works have continued to leave readers across the globe fearing the unknown.
The gruesome tale is set in the small town of rural Maine where nothing is as it seems. Pet Sematary follows the Creed family, particularly the actions and consequences of the father of the family, Dr Louis Creed, on his befriending of his neighbour, Jud Crandall, and his shocking discovery of the lurking evils of a pet cemetery he was once warned from. The reader follows his desperation and sickly curiosity for the ominous cemetery, his agonising actions of convincing and unconvincing himself to visit the sacred place, and the age-old secrets it is said to hold.
New-town-nerves lead the Creed family to take up new appointments and acquire new acquaintances with their idle neighbours after their abandonment of their old life. We, alongside the Creed family, soon discover the deadly repercussions that come from completing burials in haunted soil that has been lying in anticipation for victims. Happiness soon turns into despair as sudden death leads them into the unforgiving entrapment of the cemetery’s curse. The pet cemetery is no longer a sweet and honourable gesture to pets who have travelled over the rainbow as it once was. The cemetery ought to have never existed. Not even children are safe from the infested grains of soil they walk on.
King is unforgiving in his deviousness to hide any hint of a revelation of what the cemetery means and why it is so feared within the community. The true meaning of horror is unleashed through this novel. The terrifying descriptions of the gloomy grave digging and Louis Creed’s horrific discoveries leaves the reader’s mind playing cruel tricks in the dark. It prompts bitter questions that may never be answered - is the pursuit of happiness always worth it? Is it wrong for a parent to do anything for their child, even if it means venturing into a cemetery which spreads bad seeds to resurrect a beloved child? Louis Creed does not think so, a decision which has an unimaginable effect on Jud and his frail wife. Panic, death, grotesque resurrection, and chilling murder leaves nowhere for the reader to hide. Fear is truly understood when reading this novel, and its ability to metamorphosize from fiction to a warped reality of the mind is outstanding. As a reader you will become frozen with trepidation, but will you be brave enough to see this novel through until the end? Pet Sematary is a must-have novel for spooky season; an undoubtedly spine-shivering read which will leave you unhinged, glancing apprehensively at your once beloved pet sleeping at the bottom of the garden, panicking.
Source: Britannica
A freeze-frame from the film adaptation of Pet Sematary, Netflix.com
RUXANDRA VRABIE | CONTENT WRITER
Shirley Jackson’s life-long work, We Have Always Lived in the Castle (1962), is a horror novel which portrays the life of two sisters, Merricat and Constance Blackwood, who have been banished by the society they live in due to a long-lasting rumour about their family.
Merricat and Constance live an isolated and alienated life alongside their sickly uncle Julian in a mansion nearby a small quiet village. Constance has not left the house in six years, whilst the only time Merricat leaves the house is to buy groceries, a venture which is looked at with much scrutiny by the villagers. For as long as Merricat could remember, the villagers have always detested her family and for as long as she could remember she has detested them in return. One afternoon, the Blackwood’s long-time family friend Helen Clarke visits the two sisters and encourages Constance to leave the mansion and the grounds to explore the outside world, an idea which Merricat detests. During tea-time, Uncle Julian emerges and begins to reminisce about the past, revealing that the entire Blackwood family has been murdered one night during dinner due to arsenic poisoning, by Constance. He himself was poisoned, but only ingested a small quantity of poison causing memory loss. Uncle Julian also reveals that Constance was trailed for the murder but never convicted as there was not enough evidence to convict her.
One Sunday afternoon, the quiet isolated lives of the Blackwood sisters are drastically disturbed by the arrival of their cousin Charles. Their cousin’s aim is to charm and manipulate Constance in order to put his hand on the Blackwood’s family fortune. Meanwhile, Merricat wonders around the surrounding forest and checks on the magical artefacts she buried in order to protect her family from bad spirits. Merricat immediately hates Charles and thinks that he has a negative influence on her sister and tries to get rid of him – pinning his father’s watch in a tree and smashing the mirror from his room. Furious that Merricat destroyed his belongings, Charles argues with Merricat and then wanders off into the woods, discovering the silver dollars Mericat buried there. Whilst the family take dinner, an enraged Merricat goes up to Charles’ room, lights up his pipe and throws it into the bin. Very soon a fire engulfs the house, but Charles and the Blackwood sisters manage to escape. A village mob assembles around the mansion and begins to destroy it. The Blackwood sisters run into the forest before finally acknowledging who the real murderer is.
What makes this book a page turner? The entanglement of secrets that are presented and gradually unfolded from the very beginning to the very end of the book which, when placed together, solves the puzzle within.
The Small Hand by Susan Hill
XANTHE MCCRACKEN | CONTENT WRITER
Every good horror story ensnares us in its grasp, traps us in the haunted house, and leaves us to brood in our perplexed thoughts. Readers have travelled to these houses time and time again in novels such as The Haunting of Hill House and The Turn of the Screw. We become as captive to the words as the characters are to the narrative. The Small Hand is certainly just as impactful.
Susan Hill, the 79-year-old novelist known famously for The Woman in Black, stated in an interview with the BBC in 2011 that her writing was a sort of ‘catharsis’ for the grief she felt in losing her fiancée and her baby daughter. The theme of infant bereavement is a common one in Susan Hill’s novels, allowing her to explore the theme of loss in an entirely distinctive form. The story of The Small Hand begins with Adam Snow, a dealer in rare antique books, driving back in the narrow country roads of Sussex from a meeting with some wealthy clients. After losing his way and taking a wrong turn, he finds himself at a dilapidated Edwardian House – ‘The White House’. Induced by curiosity, he decides to explore the overgrown grounds which had once been open to the public. Snow subsequently feels a child’s hand holding his own: ‘It felt cool and its fingers curled themselves trustingly into my palm and rested there’. The hand, at first, seems welcoming; Snow doesn’t seem to be unsettled by it.
This encounter, however, soon sends Snow into a recurring spiral of nightmares, panic attacks, and apparitions of the small hand. We are left to question who this child is – if in fact they really exist. Snow’s interest with the house becomes greater, something is drawing him to it.
From the very start he is engrossed by its mysteries: ‘I wanted to know more. I wanted to see more. I wanted for some reason I did not understand to come here in the full light of day, to see everything, uncover what was concealed, reveal what had been hidden. Find out why’.
The ending, while perhaps a little predictable, does find its power in the element of the unresolved. Hill’s chilling and imaginative writing inhabits our minds, entangling itself round like the overgrown ivy of ‘The White House’. The Small Hand has a special talent of leaving readers in the dark, as they try to wrap their heads around the ambiguity of the novel.
The Small Hand is the kind of novel that keeps you guessing between the realms of insanity, supernatural and reality, not uncommon in Hill’s novels. The catharsis of Hill’s writing ultimately presents itself in its obscurity.
Source: PublicDomanPictures.Net
Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming
LIAM ELVISH | LITERARY REVIEWS EDITOR
Ian Fleming’s second James Bond novel, first published in 1954, is both an oddity for its dark, occult themes and yet exemplary of the dynamism associated with Agent 007.
Much faster-paced than its precursor, Casino Royale (1953), the story has an exotic air from the outset, seeing the literary Bond properly globe-trotting for the first time, from Harlem in New York to Florida and later, aptly, Jamaica, where the author wrote the novel at his ‘Goldeneye’ estate.
Bond uncovers the crime syndicate headed by Mr. Big (AKA The Big Man), a SMERSH operative involved in gold smuggling from British territories into the Caribbean. Whilst investigating the network, he encounters the mystical figure of Solitaire, the High priestess who can foresee the unfolding of events with the assistance of her Tarot cards. Fleming conveys the harsh brutality within the underworld of 1950s American gangsters (on which he would later elaborate in 1957’s Diamonds are Forever and 1959’s Goldfinger) and there are some shocking moments of violence. The character of Felix Leiter is given a more prominent role in the narrative compared with his first appearance, and it is perhaps a pity than Fleming here has the villains decapitate his limbs, thus rendering him largely inactive in the future novels. Nonetheless, his fate is highly dramatic and one of the more memorable aspects of the book. Leiter’s encounter with a shark is, incidentally, one of two sequences from the novel which were later used in the film series (the former in Licence to Kill and the other being the keelhauling sequence, used to great effect in For Your Eyes Only).
It is most interesting to read the novel from a racial perspective – much of the language Fleming adopts is embarrassingly dated now but, nonetheless, lends us a fascinating insight into British colonial and American attitudes towards civil rights, significantly having been published the year before Rosa Parks’ bus boycott in Alabama. Often resorting to black stereotypes in secondary characters, Fleming’s famously innate British snobbery rings throughout, yet his imaginative talents should not be underplayed as he produces a gripping story, skilfully combining the schemes of nefarious hoodlums with intense Voodoo horror. The most fantastical of all the Bond stories, Live and Let Die is unusual for any spy adventure, conjuring up images of the supernatural, which work even more brilliantly when contrasted with the stiffupper-lipped ‘Britishness’ of both its author and protagonist, heightening the underlying threat. Fleming never fails to thrill the reader, offering much scope and spectacle and ensuring the central character’s status as a true literary icon of the late Twentieth Century.
