Malpertuis, by Jean Ray

 

9781939063702

Wakefield Press, 2021

originally published 1943

translated by Iain White

246 pp

paperback

Sometimes you just find that book that you know is not only unlike anything you've ever read but also makes you wonder just how in the hell you're going to find aything that ever tops it.   This past summer I had the great fortune to have read all four volumes of Belgian author Jean Ray's short-story collections published by Wakefield:  Whisky Tales, Cruise of Shadows: Haunted Stories of Land and Sea, Circles of Dread and The Great Nocturnal, and fell in love almost immediately into the first of these, but it is Malpertuis that's really won my soul as far as Ray's work goes.  

This post will not be a long one since the secret of what lies at the very core of the mystery of the house named Malpertuis should remain exactly that until discovered by the reader.    Divided into two main parts, the story begins with a short introduction written by a thief who had discovered pages of "yellowing, scribbled papers" in a pewter tube while pilfering a monastery.  As he sets out to "sift, to classify, to eliminate" the "work of colossal size,"  he also happened upon a "little notebook, in a neat scholarly hand,  bringing "the number of collaborators to four"  people responsible for the account as a whole. In putting it all together,  now, as he says, this thief-slash editor is "obliged" to add his name 

 "to the role of those Scribes who, without their knowledge (or almost without it),  have given Malpertuis a place in the history of human terror." 

After a brief introductory chapter detailing a shipwreck, the story begins in earnest with the narrative that "constitutes the kernel of the story, around which "the appalling destiny of Jean-Jacques Grandsire that the whole horror of Malpertuis revolves."   And now we're off and into Malpertuis itself, where Jean-Jacques' Uncle Cassave is quite literally on his deathbed with his family all around.  He is obviously a man of great wealth, but his family will not inherit any of it unless they all come to live in the house until their own deaths, and to sweeten the deal they will receive annual allowances.  They may not make any changes to Malpertuis, and there are a few other conditions as well, including that the last surviving inhabitant in the house will acquire Cassave's entire fortune.  

Notably, while this is Jean-Jacques' account, when the name of that house first arises, he becomes anxious:

"Malpertuis! For the first time the name has flowed in a turbid ink from my terrified pen! That house, placed by the most terrible of wills like a full stop at the end of so many human destinies -- I still thrust aside its image! I recoil, I procrastinate rather than bring it to the forefront of my memory!"

He continues:

"What is more, pressed no doubt by the brevity of their earthly term, human beings are less patient than the house; things remain after them, things -- like the stones of which accursed dwellings are made. Human beings are animated by the feverish haste of sleep tumbling through abbatoir gates -- they will not rest until they have taken their place under the great candlesnuffer that is Malpertuis."

There is obviously something terribly wrong about this house, but I had absolutely no clue as to just how wrong things were going to become.  After being plagued by bizarre visions, strange sounds and other occurrences, Jean-Jacques at one point comes to believe he's caught up in a "dream, a nightmare," begging "For the love of God, let me wake up!"  But this is no dream.    While it may sound as if this is prime haunted-house story material, perfect for relaxing curled up in your easy chair while reading,  for me that was definitely not the case -- it is so much more, well beyond your standard fare, with one character describing Malpertuis  as a "kind of 'fold in space...' " and an "abominable point of contact."  

As is the case with his short stories, Jean Ray writes here constructing layers upon interconnecting  layers as he gets closer to the heart of the tale of Malpertuis.   The result is an atmosphere of lingering dread, bleakness and full-on uncanny created by a blending of elements of the mystical, the mythical and the Gothic, leaving the reader with the feeling that perhaps you ought to mentally hold on to a ball of string or lay breadcrumbs as you navigate the labyrinth that is both this house and this story.   I realize that it may not be for everyone -- it does take a lot of patience and time spent thinking through this puzzle of a book and although I thought I'd sussed it a couple of times, what happens here went well beyond anything I could have possibly imagined.  The Wakefield edition has an excellent editor's afterword by Scott Nicolay that by all means should be left until after completing the novel unless, of course, you want to wreck things.  Malpertuis is a wild ride of a novel that I can most heartily recommend to readers of the strange.   I was completely entranced, off in another world altogether as I read it.   

Double feature: The Magician, by Somerset Maugham and Trilby, by George Du Maurier

Before October rolled around, I had hoped that one of my online groups would choose Somerset Maugham's The Magician as its group read choice, but alas, it was not to be, so I read it anyway.    After finishing it, I read the intro and discovered that Maugham had said that the book "wouldn't have been written"

"except for the great regard I had for Joris-Karl Huysmans who was then at the height of his vogue." (ix)

The reference to Huysmans was to his Là-Bas,  but Robert Calder also notes in the introduction that there were other works with which Maugham would have been familiar, including George du Maurier's Trilby. So geek person that I am, I decided to read not only The Magician, but Là-Bas and Trilby as well. I will be writing on Huysmans' book a bit later, probably after October, so right now it's all about Maugham and Du Maurier.  The Magician, of course, was my favorite of the two, but they're both fun.

9780143104896
Penguin, 2007
originally published 1908
203 pp
paperback

 I'm not going to go into that whole Aleister-Crowley-as-model-for-Oliver-Haddo thing -- that's so well known that just mentioning this book will bring up that conversation quickly (which has happened more than once since I read it), nor am I going to get as deep as I could here due to time constraints.

The Magician is certainly worthy of being counted as Halloween reading material; it has so many of those elements that send my little heart racing, among them pulpy mysterious melodrama, a bit of decadence,  and of course the dark forces of the occult and the supernatural.    Recently arrived in Paris, Dr. Arthur Burdon has come to see his fiancée, Margaret Dauncey. While at a dinner party at the Chien Noir, the couple and their group run  into Oliver Haddo, who had the "look of a very wicked sensual priest."  Margaret took an instant, "uncontrollable dislike" to the man, but he seems to be part of the crowd where ever they go, and Margaret's friend Susie Boyd finds it "a privilege" to encounter "a man in the twentieth century who honestly believes in the occult." Arthur, the ever-rational "scientific man" is an unbeliever, and Margaret's guardian, Dr. Porhoët can't tell if Haddo is "an impostor or a madman."     Nonetheless, Haddo is invited to tea at Miss Dauncey's flat for the following Wednesday.  It is there that an event occurs that leads to Burdon physically attacking Haddo, and although Haddo makes no move to defend himself and actually apologizes, the small group of friends will discover that he has clearly not forgotten the perceived wrong to his person.  The incident sparks a most sinister, evil, two-fold plan of revenge, in which Margaret stands at the center.

Paul Wegener as Oliver Haddo, from the film. Borrowed from {feuilleton}

I was hooked from the beginning, and later, as I realized where Maugham was taking this tale, it got even more interesting since it wasn't at all what I expected when I started it. Actually, I spent much of the time wondering like Dr.Porhoët whether or not Haddo was a true magician or just a fast-talking fake, and I think this ambiguity worked well all through the novel.  By the time I reached the ending, well, let's just say that pages were being turned very quickly.  There's much more going on here that I won't get into because of time, but pay close attention not only to the relationship between Margaret and Haddo as he focuses his hypnotic powers on her, but also to Margaret herself in relation to Burdon.   And do see the old silent film (1926)  if you can find a copy (I got mine on Amazon) -- while there are definitely some scenes played for laughs here in between the main action, and while the script deviates from the novel quite a bit, it's still well worth watching.  Paul Wegener (who would later play the title role in the original Svengali movie in 1927) makes a very creepy Haddo who sent chills up my spine just looking at him.

***

On to George du Maurier's novel Trilby now.  While his character Svengali may not have had an interest in alchemy or the occult like Maugham's Oliver Haddo,  it's easy to see how Du Maurier's portrayal of this character may have influenced Maugham in the writing of his own villain.  To be honest,  The Magician is definitely the better of the two books, but Trilby is also quite good in its own way.

0192833510
Oxford University Press, 1998
originally published 1894
339 pp
paperback

"I will tell you a secret. There were two Trilbys." 

Paris is once again the setting for the story of Trilby O'Ferrall, the young artist's model who enchants not only  the three artists of this story, but also the musician Svengali.  While Svengali is not the first fictional hypnotist (Dumas' Joseph Balsamo from fifty years earlier immediately comes to mind), his name even now conjures up

"The image of a sinister hypnotist, lurking behind the scenes, ambiguously responsible for breaking and remaking another weaker character..." (Daniel Pick, Svengali's Web, 1).

 We first meet him as he comes to visit the  three artists Little Billee, Taffy, and the Laird. Du Maurier describes Svengali as  "a tall bony individual between thirty and forty-five, of Jewish aspect, well featured but sinister," with "bold, brilliant black eyes."  This scene is also the first meeting between Trilby and Svengali -- where he plays Schubert for her and then Trilby gives them all her tone-deaf rendition of "Ben Bolt." Svengali believes he can teach her to sing; some time later, he even offers to give her singing lessons, flattering her with "lovely language" about her voice, all while curing her migraine.  He tells her that the next time she has another headache that she should come to him again, and that she

"shall see nothing, hear nothing, thing of nothing but Svengali, Svengali, Svengali!"

While Billee wants to marry young Trilby, his mother steps in to do what she can to prevent the marriage from happening.   Trilby, thinking of Little Billee's future, does the noble thing and disappears from his life, only to resurface later.   It does take a bit of needle threading (and often a great deal of patience)  to find ourselves back to  the story of Trilby and Svengali, because around it, Du Maurier has placed us in the milieu of the Bohemian artists of the Latin Quarter of Paris, and he spends a lot of time giving us his own version, a "mixing of reality and fantasy" (xii) based on his own experiences.  Then, when the story moves to London, we are made privy to the world of the British upper classes, where Little Billee is now William Bagot, successful artist.  While you may wonder what's going on with Trilby all this time, well, eventually we do get back there.

My Oxford World Classics edition features Du Maurier's wonderful illustrations that I spent quite a lot of time looking at; there is so much going on in this novel underneath its surface, and Trilby is one of those books that has sparked quite a bit of academic interest in several fields.   Do as I did -- relax  and take it slowly.

The 1954 film Svengali skips pretty much everything else in Du Maurier's novel to focus on the story of Trilby, Little Billee and Svengali, making it more of a sort of love triangle kind of thing.  The tagline for this one is great: "She was a slave to his will," although it does take a while for the movie to get to that point.  I didn't like Hildegarde Neff's Trilby; I found her rather flat compared to Trilby of the novel, but hey -- it wasn't exactly a waste of time to watch the film. 

I can recommend both novels, although The Magician, as I said, is much better; it's also way easier to read as compared to the more sloggy sections of Trilby.  

one of my favorite Gothic novels of all time: Uncle Silas, by J.S. Le Fanu

0486217159
Dover, 1966 ed.
originally published 1864
436 pp

paperback

"Fly the fangs of Belisarius!"

There are certain books in my library with which I've fallen in love -- the books I've been dragging around with me from move to move that I would never let out of my sight, and this one is pretty much in the top tier of those.  I decided to reread it a few weeks ago when someone online was asking about a Victorian mystery and this one popped into my head.  Well, there's that, plus the fact that many months ago, I'd bought a dvd of the old BBC adaptation of Uncle Silas called "The Dark Angel"  and really wanted to watch it, but I wanted to wait until I'd reread the book.  I have two different editions:  Penguin  ( ISBN 9780140437461)  and this one from Dover, but I had just finished a Dover reprint of another book from 1827 and decided to continue the Dover run.

Since I'd already read this novel, I didn't skip the intro this time, and there was a particular paragraph that caught my eye, so much so that I'm putting it in bold print here:

"Well, you now have Uncle Silas in your hands. If you've not read it before, I envy you. You are about to have a first-time reading experience which, I suspect, you will never forget."

That is certainly the truth -- I remember the very first time I read it, sending pages flip flip flipping in my desire to make sure that my beloved, sweet Maud Ruthyn was going to be okay at the end, pounding heart, knotted stomach, and the feeling that everything else could just go to hell for a little while until I finished the book.  This time through, since enough years had passed since I'd first read it, I can say that the flip flip flipping, the pounding heart, knotted stomach, and the feeling that everything else could just go to hell for a little while until I finished the book happened all over again.  What's changed is that this time, unlike the last time x number of years ago,  I got much more of a sense of what lies beneath, and of just how near-perfectly  this book was written. It was this novel that started me on Le Fanu's  fiction, and afterwards,  I bought and devoured all of his gothic-ish novels (that have also moved with me from place to place), then started collecting his ghostly and other supernatural tales. I haven't read them all yet, but it's comforting to know that should I have a desire to do so, they're there, waiting for me.

This post is a huge departure from my norm, since I won't give up a single detail here, nor will I provide even the slightest hints, because first-time readers should stay away from anything about Uncle Silas  that will reveal its contents  either before or during your reading of this novel. Do so at your own peril: knowing what happens ahead of time will completely lessen the impact that the book will have on you and the fun is in the building of suspense and in getting caught up in its atmosphere as it gets darker and darker and darker,  until in its final moments when you can finally let out all of the tension you've been holding inside.  If you're not knotted with tension as you read this book, there is seriously something wrong with you. Seriously.

It is and will remain one of my favorite books ever, and I can absolutely recommend it. Unlike my usual practice, I won't go into what lies underneath its surface, but just so you know, there is a LOT happening that careful readers will be able to discern. Honestly, it's killing me to keep quiet about it, but as I said, not a word.   Just a couple of things: 1) do not gloss over the role of the Swedenborgian religion here -- it's very, very important, and 2) don't skim through either the descriptions of the landscape or the main houses in this story -- Le Fanu is an absolute master of weaving such details into his work and they only serve to augment what he's trying to do.  Other than that, my only advice is to let the book carry you away from the real world and to have tons of fun with it.

*********

Now - let's talk adaptations for a moment, neither of which should be viewed until you've finished the book.   As I noted earlier, I recently bought a screen adaptation of this novel called "The Dark Angel,"

which stars Peter O'Toole as Uncle Silas, and he's pretty damn creepy in his role. This adaptation tends to overdo it with the more nightmarish/surrealistic effects which were probably great at the time (1988)  but which now seem kind of silly and tend to lessen the suspense a bit here and there, but at least it adheres to the novel quite nicely with only a few changes here and there.  The second adaptation (1947)  is called "Uncle Silas,"  which quite frustratingly changes the story almost completely.  However, what both adaptations do well is choosing the right person to play the role of my favorite, most horrific character in this book --  Maud's governess Madame de la Rougierre.   While the actress does a great job in the 1947 version,  Jane Lapotaire does an even more freakish portrayal than her counterpart in the earlier film.

from myreviewer.com

Honestly, I didn't think that could be possible.

Both have their merits, but my money's on "The Dark Angel."

hb#5: The Cell and Other Transmorphic Tales, by David Case (ed.) Stephen Jones

9781943910069
Valancourt Books, 2015
258 pp

paperback


So now we're on to werewolves, because no Halloween would be complete without them.  While I'm not really a big reader of werewolf fiction, I made an exception with this book since I enjoy and appreciate David Case's writing, what little of it there is. In a pride-swallowing sort of way that acknowledges my prejudice against "monster" stories,  I have to admit that these stories were not only entertaining and frightening, but intelligently written to the point that it's nearly impossible not to miss the subtexts lying beneath the chills.  I always thought that werewolf stories would be same-old same-old, full-moon-turns-poor-victim-into-howling-wolf sort of thing but I have to bow my head here and stand corrected.

I might have guessed from the title alone that these stories would center on transformation -- going to a random dictionary site online to look up the word "transmorphic" brings up "the evolution of one thing from another, the transformation of one thing into another."    Each and every story in this collection carries that idea forward, while remaining unique in its own way.   For example, the title story in this collection, "The Cell," which is also my favorite here, is the story of a man who has his wife lock him up once a month in a cell in the basement.  Why? Well, that is the crux of the story, isn't it, which I'm not going to divulge.   He claims that he has a "disease" that "must be carried in the blood, or more likely, in the genes," one that makes him "become something different, something dangerous."   "Strange Roots," on the other hand, finds Anton, a "brilliant scientist" working on an "investigation into the effects of chemical and glandular imbalance in mental disorders." His theory is that  this "glandular malfunction" causes "symptoms of virilism and lycorexia" which appear simultaneously, which in turn gave rise to the "werewolf legend."  He does a series of experiments on dogs to try to isolate whatever it is that produces this condition, with terrifying results.  But once again, Case gets to the heart of the concept of "transformation" here when he lets us in on one of Anton's dreams, which makes the ending of this story even more chilling. "Among the Wolves" is mystery story, in which a series of bizarre murders lead to a startling conclusion, the answer revealed through an odd tale in which two men find themselves out in the wild, facing a pack of wolves.  Next  in this collection is "A Cross to Bear," where one missionary who understands his flock completely is replaced by another who does not, with terrible consequences. Finally, we come to "The Hunter" which is a work of art in itself. A series of baffling killings in rural England comes to the attention of John Wetherby, a retired hunter who is asked by the police to help him find the person responsible. Understanding that he sort of owes it to his past to help them out, he agrees.  They're looking for "Something that walks on two legs and runs on four," and while the press speculates about werewolves stalking the moors, the trail leads Wetherby and the police to an area near the home of another hunter, Byron, an old acquaintance of Wetherby's. The hunt is on, but it's not what you'd expect.

Michael Dirda briefly touches on this book in a Washington Post article of October 2015, and he sort of sums up the lot perfectly when he says that

"Case injects more overt psychosexual frissons into tales that deliberately confuse the humanly horrific -- serial murder, rape, -- with incursions of the supernatural." 

I'll add that aside from the transformation theme that runs through this book, there's also the age-old concept of man's beastly nature -- the beast within, so to speak --  that makes itself evident.  When there is an attempt to suppress this nature on the human side, it's as if the beast nature rebels, at which point the human part is put aside, allowing for the beast nature to take over.  In each of the stories in this book, we learn what it is that brings out this beast, what it is that triggers this transformation. In this sense, I'm reminded of Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, which delves deeply and delightfully  into the same sort of idea.

The Cell and Other Transmorphic Tales is not only a fun read  perfect for getting a reader into the Halloween spirit, but it's also worthwhile for Case's examination of the darker side of human nature. In short, it ticks my buttons both on the horror side of things and on the side of my own inquisitive nature that wants answers to the question of what it is that makes people do what they do. Personally I think horror fiction (or dark fiction) is a perfect vehicle for discovering the answers. The trick is in finding authors who share that fascination, and this book is a good place to start.

As an added bonus, Kim Newman muses on the movie Scream of the Wolf in an afterword section in this book.  It's an old movie from 1974, featured on the ABC Movie of the Week.  Directed by Dan Curtis, the script was written by Richard Matheson.  Newman says that

"We took films like Scream of the Wolf for granted when they were regularly airing on late-night TV, because they're tamer than the theatrically-released horrors of the era ... but they now have a concise, creepy appeal which shouldn't be overlooked."

Well, I don't know about that, but I will say that after I'd finished the book, I realized that the movie title was familiar but I didn't remember seeing the film. So I went through my dvd collection and discovered that I owned a 10-movie collection called Vault of Horror  (feel free to check it out -- it goes to Amazon but I get nada if you click the link), and sure enough, Scream of the Wolf was there.  So I watched it.  I didn't think it was at all frightening and while there are threads that carry from page to screen, the movie doesn't do its predecessor the justice it deserves.  In fact, I was actually thinking while watching this film that it would have been perfect for an MST3K riff.  Stick to the story -- it's so much better.

The book I'd recommend in a heartbeat.  Once again, it may not appeal so much to readers who like everything spelled out for them so they don't need to think about what they've just read, but if you're on on the flip side of that crowd, trying to figure out what's going on in each story makes for great thought time.

*Conjure Wife, by Fritz Lieber -- hb#2

9780765324061
Orb Books, 2009
originally published 1943
224 pp

paperback

I'm trying to maintain calm and do normal things right now, so before Matthew knocks on our door and while we still have power I figured I'd post about this book.  I did a flip-flop on this one, and watched the movie prior to reading the novel, but I can tell you that the movie follows the book pretty closely.

Norman Saylor is a professor of sociology who finds himself caught up in supernatural forces that he's built a career denying. Norman teaches sociology at a small university, more specifically, his work centers on the "parallelisms of primitive superstition and modern neurosis," even coming up with a book about it. He believes that magic is just a product of superstition -- in short he doesn't believe in it.  However, his wife Tansy does, and has been, unknown to Norman,  putting up protective magical shields to keep Norman safe from a trio of women who see him as a threat to their own interests. When Norman discovers that Tansy's been doing this, he makes her get rid of everything, and that's when all of the trouble begins.  Suddenly things start taking a turn for the worse, but level-headed Norman tries to rationalize every weird occurrence -- until he can no longer afford to do so.

As author Robert Dunbar writes in his very informative book Vortex, Conjure Wife "remains a masterpiece of understated horror," which I must say is an accurate assessment.  There are moments in this tale that had me on the edge of my chair, and the last part of the book is just downright frightening, pages being flipped at a frantic rate.    But aside from the horror aspect, there's so much happening here.  I'm back to Vortex to summarize, since I can't say it any better than this:

"Leiber had instincts enough to realize that the atmosphere at a small college, removed from what most would deem reality and claustrophobically rife with faculty jealousy, provided a perfect setting for the practice of the dark arts..." (160). 

I'd also add that all of the seemingly benign bridge parties and get-togethers with the same group of people time and again are perfect environments for hiding backbiting and resentment, and that comes out in this novel as well.

However, here, the major focus is on the women, and with good reason. First, no matter how much he denies it, Norman gradually comes face to face with the notion that witchcraft exists, and more importantly, that it's a force that all women possess.  Most use it for protection, but there are those women who, longing for power and social status, use it for their own ends, turning to a darker side of the craft.  Second, the men in this book are absolutely oblivious to the fact that it's the women who actually (but secretly) run the world, all the while hiding behind men's views of them as the weaker sex.  There's much more, but that should be enough to whet anyone's appetite. Considering when this novel was written, it's still surprisingly relevant right now.

Peter Wyngarde as Norman Saylor

The movie (1962), which due to not doing my homework I thought was based on Merritt's book of the same name (only to find out while watching that it was not), is also very well done, a true nail-biter  and manages to capture the same creeping horror of  the novel without having to resort to crappy gimmicks or effects. Reviews of this movie abound online so I won't go into it, but it's well worth finding a copy to watch after reading the book.

Again, superlatives all around for both book and film.  Very highly recommended.

HB#1: nothing says Halloween like a haunted house: *The Uninvited, by Dorothy Macardle

0892440686
Queens House, 1977
reprint of  Doubleday 1942 ed.
342 pp

hardcover

Just a brief note about this book.  My edition was published in 1977 and is a reprint of the original 1942 edition.   It was a bit pricey, although as it turns out, worth every damn cent, but the good news is that anyone looking for a reasonably-priced edition will find it in the new (September) edition put out by  Tramp Press. If you're an Amazon shopper, then you're in luck -- it's also available there.

On a weekend in Devon, writer Roderick (Roddy) Fitzgerald and his sister Pamela, are driving around looking for house to buy. Both of them want to get out of London and feel that they need a  "complete break with town, a life with air, space and growth in it." This is, as it turns out, their fifth weekend of looking.  They actuallly find the perfect spot, but the house itself turned out to be a "drab barrack" not even facing the sea.  Turning the car back toward London, and feeling like their "hopes had been preposterous," Pamela sees a lane she'd like to explore, convinced that there "must be a grand view from the top." It is then that they set eyes on Cliff End, fall in love with it, and ultimately buy it from Commander Brooke, whose granddaughter Stella actually owns the house. After the offer is made, Brooke reveals something that he feels obliged to mention without going into much detail:   it seems that some six years earlier, Cliff End had been occupied for some months, but the people who'd lived there had "experienced disturbances" and had left. Roddy shrugs it off -- and the two siblings begin to fix the house to begin their idyllic country life.

Not long afterward, the two learn about the  "local legend" attached to Cliff End, regarding the death of its former mistress, Mary Meredith. Mary was the daughter of  Commander Brooke, and was married to artist Llewellyn Meredith.  It seems that one very windy and stormy night, Llewellyn's model Carmel took off running toward the edge of a cliff, Mary following behind.  Carmel got pushed into a tree, while Mary went off the cliff.  It wasn't too much later that Carmel died from a resulting case of pneumonia. Left motherless was three year-old Stella, who was then taken to live with her grandfather.

Happy now that they are "at home," it doesn't take long before they start noticing a few strange occurrences, which only intensify as time goes on.  When their first houseguests arrive, things get even stranger; the horror becomes gradually worse to the point where the Fitzgeralds realize that the smart thing would be to leave Cliff End. Ultimately, though, they realize that everything they're experiencing seems to center directly on Stella.  Neither of them really want to leave, so Pamela tries to come up with a number of theories as to what's happening to them in order to find some sort of solution to be able to face down the menace that is currently in control of their lives.

Cliff End, from the movie

The Uninvited is a wonderful story, but reading carefully, it's not difficult at all to see that there's  more going on in this book than just ghosts and a haunting.

 While I'm not going to go into any detail at all in the way of what I think is going on here besides all of the supernatural events, I will say that I saw different undercurrents at work here, including repression and marginalization, a reluctance to dig up past history even when it's the only hope for the future, and most importantly perhaps, motherhood under the microscope.

I have this deep and abiding love of good haunted house stories, and I have to say that I was very, very happy with The Uninvited on many levels. On the other hand, the novel was slow to start, but it wasn't too long before I was completely absorbed.  I also figured out the surprises in this story long before they were revealed; then again, that may be due to my many eons of reading crime fiction and learning to put two and two together as the clues unfold.   Bottom line: it's a fine, creepy novel that is fun to read on its surface with much deeper strains running underneath all of the ghostly activity.

And now to the film. I had great fun watching this movie.   The first thing I noticed is that the beginning of the movie belies what's coming later on with its sort happy-go-lucky kind of opening.  Here, Rick (known as Roddy in the novel) and Pam arrive at the house with little dog in tow. There's this kind of silly fun sort of scene where the dog chases a squirrel into an open window at the house, followed by Rick and Pam where they take a tour of the place and decide that it's perfect.   We see Pam and her brother in a sort of carefree, happy mode that not too much later dissolves as the first of the strange happenings gets their attention. It's an awesome movie, and the acting, especially that of Gail Russell who plays Stella, is quite good.  I also loved how the director played with shadows here, which in some instances reminded me of classic noir film scenes. Side by side, though, the book for me was much better -- much darker than the movie, for sure.    Contentwise, the book goes much deeper into the whole mystery behind the hauntings, whereas  it gets sort of a muddled reveal toward the end in the film retelling.  And the seance scene in the novel is beyond brilliant as compared to the one in the movie.

Once again, both book and movie are yesses, and true fans of the supernatural should miss neither. Highly recommended, although both may seem tame to modern readers.  Not to me, though -- I was sucked into both and stayed suspended there until the end.

*reveling in obscure weirdness once again: Alraune, by Hanns Heinz Ewers

9780987195395
Birchgrove Press, 2013
340 pp
originally published 1911
translated by S. Guy Endore
paperback


That decadent vibe -- I just love it and this book is filled with it.  Alraune brings together a bit of the grotesque, the perverse, and all manner of weirdness that appeals, but when all is said and done, it's the German style of decadence that resonates.    It is Ewers' second entry in his Frank Braun trilogy, between The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Vampire, neither of which I've read. Alraune is another word for mandrake, the legends of which  go way back in history, but for our purposes, it's the German version told in this book that's relevant:

"The criminal stripped naked as a pair of tongs and hanged at the crossroads, lost, so the story goes, his final seed, the moment his neck was broken. This seed falls to the ground and there germinates. Thence resonates an alraune, either a little man or a little woman."

In the house of King's Councilor Gontram,  there is an alraune manikin made of wood hanging on the wall; according to the same legend, it "served as an amulet against witchcraft and drew money into the house."  Present at the house when the manikin is discovered is Frank Braun, nephew to Jacob ten Brinken, who is Privy Councilor and scientist involved in some pretty bizarre experiments.  Braun decides that his uncle should "create an alraune: one that will be alive, one of flesh and blood." He is fascinated with the idea, and tells his uncle that he is the only one who can "make truth out of the lie," by bringing the legend to life.  Off to the lab goes our somewhat mad scientist with the sperm of a hanged man, with which he inseminates a prostitute and thus is born Alraune, formed "against all laws of nature." Even before she's born, she can be heard screaming in the womb, much like the mandrake is supposed to sound as it's being pulled out of the earth.  After her birth she is adopted by ten Brinken, baptized, and later sent off to school where she begins to realize that no one, absolutely no one, male or female, can resist her.  People are like Alraune's toys -- she plays with them for a while, gets what she wants from them, and then they are discarded. A better analogy is that she is the proverbial flame luring the moth -- and when some poor soul gets too close to her,  he/she finds his/her wings singed or even sometimes flat out destroyed. The story follows Alraune as she grows up, makes her father's fortune, and plays with people, up until one man comes along who seems to be immune to her.

There are so many ways anyone could read this novel so I'm not going to go into the under-the-surface stuff here.  Suffice it to say that Alraune is downright weird, and its sheer weirdness is augmented by the original drawings by Mahlon Blaine.  For example, here's his depiction of death "gliding through the quiet house"

(that's a cigar in the skeleton's mouth), and an illustration of Alraune's "father's" perverse feelings toward her, in a scene where she's dressed up like an "elevator-boy in a tight-fitting scarlet uniform," since it pleases him when she dresses like a boy:

Seriously, there's some very messed up stuff going on in this novel, but by now everyone knows I love really strange books and that I love old books -- Alraune is a bizarre blend of both.  Try at your own risk -- it's really going to appeal to readers who appreciate the old decadent aesthetic, and frankly,  it is just plain odd but I  loved it.  This book crawled underneath my skin and hasn't left.

Oh! PS:  I forgot -- I did watch an adaptation of this novel, English title "Unnatural," with Erich von Stroheim as ten Brinken and Hildegarde Neff in the title role.  It leaves a lot to be desired in terms of the novel as well as the acting, but it was still fun.

*Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, by Patrick Suskind

0375725849
Vintage International, 2001
originally published as Das Parfum, 1986
translated by John E. Woods
255 pp

paperback

"What he coveted was the odor of certain human beings: that is, those rare humans who inspire love."

There are just some books you want to sit down and discuss with a group of people, and Perfume is definitely one of those.  A couple of days after I'd finished it, I went to look at reader reviews and found a number of different takes on it.  For example, on Amazon, one reader referred to it as "one of the best, strangest thriller novels..." , another praised its "dark, gothic, serial killer plot of a genre pageturner," still another says it's a "commentary on perversion, unfettered arrogance, and ironically misplaced idealism."  So I went to goodreads to see what readers there said, and found "one of the greatest horror novels ever written," and "a cross between Silence of the Lambs and a period drama."  Sheesh -- the interpretations seem endless!!

  So then I went to contemporary reviews of this book and even here I got very different impressions.  For example (and with apologies to anyone without an NYRB archives subscription) Robert M. Adams' NYRB review saw it as a story of

"an alleged sniffer of genius, born to squalor in eighteenth-century France, who by sheer concentrated nose-power rises to be the supreme perfumer of his age, and simultaneously an atrocious criminal."

He also said it was "a ridiculously improbably piece of verbose claptrap..." as well as an allegory of the Third Reich.  Peter Ackroyd, writing in the New York Times, says it's a "meditation on the nature of death, desire and decay."

However anyone may understand or interpret this novel, it just screams let's sit down and talk about it.

[just an fyi: there are a couple of spoilers ahead so beware]:

 I'm tempted to throw it onto this year's real-world book group list, but for some reason my friends don't really do deep dark, and this book is deep dark.  I think that one way to make sense of it is to read it as a story (in part) of personal and artistic identity; it can also be read as one man's quest for purpose, meaning, love, and perfection by a person whose life up to a certain point was destined to remain alone in the stink and squalor of the life he was born into. It's only after his first murder that our main character, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille,  begins to understand that  "Never before in his life had he known what happiness was... for until now he had merely existed like an animal."  His purpose begins taking form at this moment, as he realizes that he

"must become a creator of scents. And not just an average one. But rather, the greatest perfumer of all time." (43)

And why? He viewed the scent of his first victim as the  "higher principle, the pattern by which the others must be ordered. It was pure beauty."  He believed that unless he "possessed this scent, his life would have no meaning," so he goes on to try to capture it, hence the series of murders that follows. But there is method to Grenouille's madness. This story isn't about someone who kills just anyone -- as we're told,  "What he coveted was the odor of certain human beings: that is, those rare humans who inspire love."

Ironically, this "higher principle"  is really only understood by one other person, the father (Richis) of Laure, Grenouille's last victim:

"For if one imagined -- and so Richis imagined -- all the victims not as single individuals, but as parts of some higher principle and thought of each one's characteristics as merged in some idealistic fashion into a unifying whole, then the picture assembled out of such mosaic pieces would be the picture of absolute beauty, and the magic that radiated from it would no longer be of human, but of divine origin."  (203)  

 Obviously there's so much more to this novel that I can't really go into here although I wish I could -- the very important connection between being scentless and the resulting perception of being soulless (and in my opinion I can read "self" less here), Grenouille's time in seclusion, the bizarre ending ... there's just too, too much.  But I will say that I absolutely loved this book on many levels and was hooked from page one.  God, this is a great novel!!

Laure Richis (as played by Rachel Hurd-Wood) from the movie 

Sadly, to me anyway, while the film was okay and while I couldn't stop watching,  it sort of missed some of the (if you'll pardon the pun) essence of the novel. There are a number of differences between book and movie, but the book offers so much more in terms of sensory details that to me are highly important -- as just one example from the beginning, why it is that Jean-Baptiste is shunned as an infant by his first caretakers, the wet nurse and then a Catholic priest.  Plus, I really, really hate voice-overs on films, but that's just me.  Read the book, then see the movie in that order, and chances are you won't need the voice-overs.

*a head-spinning, beyond-disturbing experience, and I loved it: The Tenant, by Roland Topor

193361806x
Millipede Press, 2006
originally published as La loquetaire chemérique (1964)
translated by Francis K. Price
216 pp

paperback

Just in case there's anyone left that doesn't know, The Tenant was made into a film by Roman Polanski.  The movie is freaky but the book is truly beyond disturbing.  Read the book and then see the film; things make so much more sense in that order.

I have looked at a few readers' takes on this book, and see the same thing written again and again: "a vicious satire on conformity."  This phrase, as I discovered, is from Wikipedia, and while it is appropriate, it doesn't even begin to cover what's happening here.  Nor does it give a reader the slightest clue as to just how very dark this book actually is -- Topor's novel burrowed into my head and still hasn't left; I finished it some time ago.  The words "tyranny of conformity" came to mind when describing this book to someone, but it even goes well beyond that.

There is a rare opening in the apartment building on the Rue des Pyrénées, and Trelkovsky, who is facing the prospect of shortly being homeless, decides to jump on it.  When the former tenant, Simone Choule, dies, Trelkovsky moves in. The place is even furnished, since Simone's family doesn't want her stuff; there are reminders of her everywhere.   He's lucky to have the place -- there is a scarcity of available apartments, and he considers himself fortunate. He puts down his money, and at the initial  interview with the landlord, he is told by Monsieur Zy that

"You can see that no one has any trouble getting along with me, so long as he behaves properly, and pays the rent regularly."

Trelkovsky is so eager to get into the apartment that he accepts the conditions. Later, there is a "sort of housewarming" with friends at his place not long afterward, and this is when things begin to change.  The noise made by Trelkovsky's guests brings his upstairs neighbor to the door to complain.  Trelkovsky apologizes; afterwards, back in the apartment, Trelkovsky does his best to quiet his friends, eventually throwing them out. His happiness is now replaced by shame; he even starts to think of himself as an "odious person." As he muses,

"That indescribable din of his revelry had waked up everyone in the building! Could it be that he had no respect for others? That he was incapable of living in a normal, civilized society?"

And here, only some 29 pages in, is where my brain goes click whir, big broad pink highlighter on the phrase as written in my notebook --  now I know what to look for, based on his  mention of his fellow tenants as "normal, civilized society."

To avoid becoming homeless, Trelkovsky no longer invites his friends over; he starts spending quiet nights at home as an insurance policy against a time when he might accidentally make noise.   When there is a robbery and some personal items are stolen, he is urged by the landlord not to go to the police.  He is also told that the previous tenant wore slippers after 10 p.m. Things start to spiral out of control as he comes to realize that with the robbery, he has also lost his past and remnants of his identity; leading him to question exactly what constitutes a self. Unfortunately, as he comes to realize, who he is is no longer his to decide; that decision rests with the rest of the people in the building.    As the neighbors continue to browbeat and persecute him, the outsider/other in this "civilized society,"  into acquiescing, he begins to become paranoid, and finds himself slowly sliding into madness.

That's the nutshell version; to say more would be to ruin it for others completely.

Very early on in this story, the reader understands that  Trelkovsky is an easy target: he  tries very hard to conform to others' expectations,  in real life, hiding his true nature by doing what's expected of him around others. For example, when he goes to the mass for Simone Choule after her death, we learn that he is not religious, but he imitates the movements and attitudes of others. When the thoughts of death are too much for him, he tries to leave but  the door won't open, and he is worried about the "disapproving glances"  of the others there.  When he goes to a movie with Simone's best friend Stella, she hits on him, rubbing her leg against his so he starts touching her, even though he's probably gay.  He even begins to drink hot chocolate in the cafe by his building because the waiter assumes that he wants it because Simone always had it; same thing with her brand of cigarettes.

To me, this novel speaks to alienation within the context of a repressive society; the attempts at imposed conformity and the persecution of the outsider -- extremely disturbing, but in the reading world, I love this stuff. Combine that with an eventual loss of self/identity under the auspices of those who want to define exactly who and what a person should become, and it makes for darkness very readable. Here, we get an example of exactly what it is when I look for while reading -- when does someone reach their breaking point, and what factors combine to bring someone to the edge of that abyss?   It is just so very sad that this novel is out of print and that copies are so bloody expensive -- The Tenant would make a great book to read with a group.  Hell, if I had unlimited funds, I'd buy several copies and start a group just for the purpose of reading it!

Polanski's film based on this book is also disturbing and really does capture the essence of the novel.  Of course, most of the book takes place within the confines of Trelkovsky's head, so there will naturally be some omissions, but the movie is one of the better screen adaptations I've seen this year. I was alone when I watched it, so I chose to do it late afternoon, but it was so eerie that I had it in my head the rest of the night. Read the novel first though -- I was so happy I did it in that order.

Book and movie -- both very, very highly recommended.  Just be warned. Neither is liable to leave your head for some time.