Witch-Cult Abbey, by Mark Samuels

9783945795644

Zagava, 2020

186 pp, hardcover

I bought this book because it seemed perfect for October reading and because it takes place in an Abbey in a remote, rural area of England, a setting I'm completely drawn to.    After finishing Witch-Cult Abbey, I can say without hesitation that if ever a book was meant to be read as Halloween approaches it is this one.  When the first chapter opens with a quotation from Poe, well...you know it's right.  

The war is raging in the skies over Britain when a cataloguer of antiquarian books gets the offer of a much-needed job.  The owner of the shop where he worked off Hampstead High Street had died and the business was sold, so Mr. Prior decides to follow up on the opportunity.  The letter from a certain Lady Caroline Degabaston takes him to Thool Abbey, Gallows Langley in Hertford, hopefully to gain employment cataloguing the Abbey's library.  

Prior doesn't even make it into the building when he begins to feel an "acute sensation of nausea and loathing." He is taken to the library where he is left alone for some time; on going to look for someone, he notices that his watch has stopped.  Finally word comes that her Ladyship will not be able to meet him after all that day, and  a room is made ready for him in the attic, and there he finds some dubious-looking food as well as some articles of clothing. Settling in for the night, he is plagued with bizarre dreams.  When the next day arrives and there is still no sign of Lady Degabaston, Prior decides that it's time to leave.   The inhabitants of the Abbey, however, don't see things that way, and he is brought back to the Library where both he and his chair are chained to prevent any further attempts at leaving. 

Let the strangeness begin.

As he starts his cataloguing work, Prior's efforts are stymied as books allow only brief glimpses into their contents before the covers are somehow sealed "into an apparently single block," or in one case, the pages wrapped around his hand.  The exception is a set of thirty-seven books by Thomas Ariel, Kruptos, "that magnum opus of the bizarre."   Prior's life is lived in the candle-lit library and then locked in his attic room, his sense of reality shaken as he endures days of "hopelessness and drugged lassitude," as well as discovering that the abbey's structure seems to be constantly shifting.  When an expected visitor, the Reverend Alphonsus Winters (which I'm guessing may be a disguised Montague Summers-like figure)  arrives on a mission, Prior learns about the history of the Degabaston family, as well as  the "demonic infestation" within Thool Abbey which 

"radiates tentacles of spiritual contagion across most of Europe."

 From there utter madness reigns; since the story is narrated by Prior, the terror becomes ever more palpable and immediate as we live through his growing sense of dread and through the horrors he soon begins to encounter.  The "surrealistic, non-linear pattern of derangement"  Prior experiences as he narrates his experiences extends far beyond the realm of chilling, falling into bleak, nightmarish territory. 

I'm number 199

 Mark Samuels' excellent writing here kept me on tenterhooks the entire time as my ongoing question of  how much worse things could possibly get was constantly asked and answered.   Witch-Cult Abbey is one of those books that grows darker and more sinister at every turn as you wait for some sort of relief that never comes.  I can't count the number of times I was sorely tempted to turn to the ending, only to discover once I got there that it wouldn't have helped relieve the ever-tightening knots in my stomach.   It is also the kind of horror novel I enjoy reading -- it is intelligent and atmospheric, there is no descent made into utter gratuitous grossness,  and it hearkens back to the days of classic gothic/horror storytelling while remaining thoroughly modern weird in the telling.   The book itself -- absolutely old-style beautiful with fine illustrations marking the beginning of each chapter, and I am in awe of the work of Joseph Dawson here.    I sense more Zagava offerings coming my way.  

Very, very highly recommended.  I'm shivering again just thinking about it.   

*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.

book #2: The Witch and the Priest, by Hilda Lewis

9781939140289

Valancourt Books, 2013

(originally published 1956)

276 pp

paperback

The "witchcraft" entry for this year's Halloween reading lineup, The Witch and the Priest by Hilda Lewis,  just may be one of the most intelligent witchcraft novels I've read on the topic. Based on the very real case of the Witches of Belvoir of the 17th century, Lewis has fashioned a very well-crafted story about what really lies beneath the persecution of these women.  It is also a story about justice, compassion and mercy and the often dual-sided nature of both good and evil. 

from bewitchment-at-belvoir-flowers-revenge.html

The foreword to this book offers readers a starting point in terms of just who these witches were.  In a 1619 pamphlet that details the trial of these women (illustrated above), Margaret and Philip (Philippa) Flower, were executed after being "specially arraigned and condemned" by the assize judges after confessing not only to the "destruction of Henry lord Rosse"  by means of their "damnable practices against others." Their mother Joan was also arrested for witchcraft, but died along the way to Lincoln, missing the hangman's noose altogether.  It is Joan whose story drives the narrative in this novel; the entire book is an ongoing conversation between Joan and the Reverend Samuel Fleming, one of the examining judges in the original case. Fleming, it seems, has been carrying a heavy burden for a "twelvemonth," wondering if these three women were really witches or whether the

"poor hanged creatures were nothing but desperately unhappy; a little crazy, maybe with their miseries? Or -- how if they were poor, merely; and ugly and ignorant and uncouth? That -- and nothing more?" 

He also wonders whether or not he was a "righteous judge or a credulous old man," and though his sister feels that he shouldn't worry so much since he didn't actually sentence them to be hanged,  his "own heart" would never "acquit" him.  Indeed, he worries so much that in a moment of agony he calls out to the now-dead Joan Flower, asking the question that had been tormenting him for over a year:

"Did we wrong you bitterly, you and your two daughters? Or were you rightly judged?" 

bringing Joan to him, "as he had seen her last..."

 As she notes,

"Since I died denying my Master, the gates of Hell are shut against me; since I died unshriven, the gates of Heaven are shut against me also. I come because you will not let me rest. While I was yet alive you did not with a full heart wrestle for my soul. But because you grieve for my sake, one more chance is given you to win my soul for your god. If you fail, your soul in is peril also, because you failed to do that which your god set you to do."

Once Fleming agrees to listen, she begins her long story, explaining how and why she became a witch and how she got her daughters involved with her Master.   In fact, the entire novel is a long conversation between Fleming and Joan Flower that not only focuses on the Flower family and their deeds, but on Fleming himself, justice, the nature of good and evil, and above all, compassion.

I think I'll leave it there, but I will say that this novel has it all. You have your Sabbats, esbats and frenzied orgies; there are drugs that offer the feeling of flying, witches' familiars, curses, etc. At the same time Lewis patiently applies astute reasoning to why women (in this case anyway) were often branded as witches. She gets into the socioeconomic reasons, the class/caste differences between the regular folk and the nobility -- the mutual mistrust between the two groups,  the double standard benefiting the latter among other things --  and even more relevant in today's world, the failure to take into consideration that some people are just not as mentally acute as others, calling for a justice tempered with mercy and compassion in their cases.

The Witch and the Priest is definitely what I'd call a page turner, but it is also well written and intelligent, making this a novel very much worth reading.  No "Charmed" BS here -- just a great book.