hb#8, and the last of the designated Halloween reads, The Case Against Satan, by Ray Russell

9780143107279

Penguin Classics, 2015

140 pp

paperback

I've been perusing reader reviews of this novel, and for the most part, I'm finding a lot of posts that downplay this book because it's "outdated" and some that say that readers might better be served by reading something more along the lines of Blatty's The Exorcist or Tremblay's A Head Full of Ghosts.  

Well, everyone to his or her own of course, but at the very beginning of this book we are specifically told  that  "a priest of the Roman Catholic Church was put on trial one harrowing weekend in the second half of the twentieth century."  Why and how he's "put on trial" is the focal point of this novel,  and yet somehow, the draw for a lot of readers seems to be only the expectations of the exorcism that takes place here.  And that's a shame, really, since there is a lot going on here otherwise. 

In a nutshell, without going into too much detail and spoiling things for future readers, the novel begins with an outgoing priest, Father Halloran, confiding in his replacement, Father Gregory Sargent, about some of the people in the parish, mentioning a particular family he's worried about. This is the Garth family, young sixteen year-old Susan and her father.  According to Halloran, Susan is motherless, is "very disturbed," and she has "fits."  He's counseled her father to take Susan to see a psychiatrist, and as Gregory finds out in his own discussion with Mr. Garth about her problem behaviors,  dad has refused to do so.  Susan, it seems, has been wanting to see a shrink, but Garth continues to insist that she's "not crazy."  It's obvious that Susan is starting to trust Gregory but things take a strange turn when she is questioned privately by Gregory's superior, Bishop Crimmings, and reacts in an unexpected way.  

Forward-thinking Gregory believes that Susan's behavior may be based on "an unpleasant childhood experience connected in her mind with the church, or something she has done that makes her feel unclean, unworthy...," in short, a psychological explanation; Crimmings, on the other hand, makes no bones about the fact that the girl is possessed, "literally and actually."  And thus ensues a struggle between science-based reason and superstition-based faith, as Crimmings insists that Gregory perform an exorcism, while Gregory questions why he should "Drive out a medieval Devil" he has "trouble believing in." The Bishop believes he must do it, because it is the "only thing" that can save him -- it seems that Gregory's faith is to be tried, since by admitting he doesn't believe in the Devil, he could be seen as a heretic, because 

"If God existed, logically his Adversary existed." 

As I said earlier, there's way more in this novel than just the exorcism itself -- I found several things of interest here, among them the similarities between sexual and religious ecstasy, the nature of trauma, and hysteria spread by and grounded in ignorance.  There's also a wonderful scene here where Gregory is dreaming and finds himself in the last scene of Macbeth, and Beaudelaire's lovely story "The Generous Gambler" even finds its way to relevance here, since one of the main questions brought up here is the existence of the devil.  Beaudelaire's comment in his tale, if you haven't read it, is yes, but perhaps not quite in the way we imagine.  And of course, the decision as to whether Susan is possessed is left purposefully ambiguous, so that readers are able to make up their own minds as to what's actually going on here.

The last chapter of the book just put me off completely, but despite its ending, I thought this book was very well done.  And my suggestion would be to look past the expectations of a head-spinning, pea-soup launching exorcism, since there's much more here than meets the eye, and in my opinion, continues to have relevance. If you're looking for something with grossout power, this isn't the book you want. However,   I would certainly recommend it to readers who are looking to discover exactly what sort of evil exists in the course of ordinary human lives.

Monsieur de Bougrelon, by Jean Lorrain

9781943679034
Spurl Editions, 2016
172 pp
translated by Eva Richter
originally published 1897

paperback -- I am beyond indebted to Spurl Editions for sending me a copy of this wonderful book. Thank you!


"Me, I am at home here. A Boudoir of the Dead, truly, but of the Living Dead, for I know the words that give bodies to these tatters, I know the words of love and tenderness that reawaken smiles and glances here; for these Dead return, yes Messieurs, these Dead return because I love them, and they obey me because they know: only love resurrects the dead." 
                                                    --48


I am still very much a newbie to the world of fin-de-siècle literature, which for some reason that I don't quite yet understand has a strong appeal and an even stronger pull that's leading me to begin stocking my bookshelves with work from this period. I am also a relative newbie to the work of Jean Lorrain, whose books Nightmares of an Ether-Drinker and Monsieur de Phocas I've found to be absolutely brilliant.  That brilliance continues now in his Monsieur de Bougrelon, a stunning novel which anyone even remotely interested in this author needs to read.

In 1896, Lorrain and his friend Octave Uzanne traveled together to Amsterdam, a trip which evidently bored them to tears, and evidently inspired this novel.  The story begins with two Frenchmen (obviously stand-ins for Lorrain and Uzanne) touring Amsterdam, "always water and houses painted black and white" which the narrator tells us can become "eventually a bit monotonous." As the pair continue their tour of this "uniform" city, they come to the conclusion that the major attractions, "Nes, Zeedjik, the Dam, did not speak to us anymore."  It is then that they walk into the Cafe Manchester, a brothel where the whores are not at all tempting, and where they first encounter Monsieur de Bougrelon:

His redingote was green, and what a threadbare green! His pants, attached by boot straps, twisted screw-like into his heeled boots, which were thin and polished, though ripped open at the toe; his muffler of red wool, so very long around his neck, was a darned and patched-together rag full of holes; but inasmuch as this tatterdamalion was a great nobleman -- with his face of an old Capitano, made up and powdered white, his bloodshot eyes blackened with charcoal, and his mouth toothless beneath the double-comma of his waxed mustache -- this puppet personified a race, his mask a soul." (17)

The next day, since "Amsterdam awaits," M. de Bougrelon begins his role as tour guide, taking the two travelers on a tour of the city as only he can deliver.   In this city which is "all windows ... but there are no doors," the Amsterdam that they are about to enter is can be described as a world separate from reality, filled with "phantoms," which come across as  "specters" from Monsieur de Bougrelon's memories. Showing up each day dressed even more outrageously than the day before, in each place he takes them, in every story he recounts, these memories are revisited -- outlandish, frequently changed, mixed up with stories from different writers, embellished, or perhaps outright made up, but they are all filled with "imaginary pleasures, ... as only this cloudy country's atmosphere of dreams and fog can produce."   And even though they have cause to think at one point that their guide  had "gone too far" and that they were "dealing with a madman," the first time he doesn't show up our travelers actually missed him.  Amsterdam was not Amsterdam anymore without Monsieur de Bougrelon," the narrator muses, and he comes to understand that

"it was through his heroic visions that we had loved the monotony of its streets and the genuinely hostile ugliness of its inhabitants." 

But I think that there is method in this madman's madness here. In a big way, this book can also be read as a sort of love story, or at least a way of preserving memories of a past love, keeping them alive or resurrecting them, if you will.   One of the first things that the vacationing Frenchmen had learned about their guide is that he has been in Holland for nearly thirty years, having moved there after he had "exiled" himself "for a man," Monsieur de Mortimer, traveling with him to The Hague after leaving Paris. Monsieur de Mortimer features prominently in each and every place Monsieur de Bougrelon takes these two gentlemen, in each and every tale spun by their guide.  On the day they are to return to France, he offers them thanks for allowing him to relive "the Amsterdam of Monsieur de Mortimer," and that for him, Mortimer's ghost

"still fills this city. He is beside me when I walk along these canals; he speaks quietly to me as I slowly roam around at night, at twilight, in our dear museum." The portraits that we once loved together smile at me, gesture to me, look at me with our former bond."

It is very easy to envision Monsieur de Bougrelon as someone who is not simply a madman or a man of "heroic visions" (absurd as they can be in some cases), but also as someone who takes great delight in showing disdain for the world he lives in by reliving a past filled with "imaginary pleasures,"  largely, it seems, created for his own enjoyment. As he says early on,

"As backward as this country is, it has moved on, but me, I stayed in place. I am an idea in an era that has no more of them," 

and later, he refers to himself as  "an outcast, an old madman cloistered in a vision that I do not want to touch," preferring to remain in an Amsterdam that is "crowded with my cherished phantoms."  

There is so much more, of course, that time doesn't allow for, but Monsieur de Bougrelon continues to explore some of Lorrain's favorite themes, including art, puppets, masks, and homosexuality; he also has occasion here to revisit "the gaze" so prominent in his Monsieur de Phocas, as well as his comparisons of women to Salomé.  It is outlandish, darkly funny, definitely incorporating elements of decadence, and yet it is strangely poignant as one heads toward the end of the novel.  It is a beautiful book and I am so grateful that yet another translation of Lorrain's writing has made its way into my reading orbit.

Thanks so much, people at Spurl, for making it happen.

hb #7 -- The Delicate Dependency: A Novel of the Vampire Life, by Michael Talbot

9781941147245
Valancourt Books, 2016
originally published 1982
373 pp

paperback

Oh, what wonderful things this author would probably have accomplished had he not unfortunately died so early. This guy was only 29 -- 29,  mind you!  -- when he wrote this book, and his death followed only ten years later.  The Delicate Dependency is my first venture into Michael Talbot's work, although not too far in I decided he was worth reading again, so I bought a copy of his Night Things.  Now I'm looking at his very short bibliography and  I see I will need to also pick up his The Bog, both of which, like The Delicate Dependency, are fortunately available through Valancourt Books.

There are just some books that make me feel like I've been wrapped up in a cocoon of perfect happiness while reading them, and this novel is one of those.  Not only is it a fun story with a number of unexpected twists and turns,  it also has that Victorian-style pulpy aesthetic that I love so much.  Once I started reading it, I was beyond happy that it turned out not to be your average vampire novel, but something that moved well beyond the same old same old and into the realm of just pure reading pleasure.

The story actually begins in 1856 when our narrator, John Gladstone, who is only seven years old at the time, sees what he believes is an angel.  Thinking about why the face is familiar to him,  he realizes that the young man looked exactly like the angel in the Madonna of the Rocks, da Vinci's famous painting that John had seen recently at the National Gallery.  It was a face that Gladstone never wanted to forget.

Flashing forward to Gladstone's adult years when this story really begins, he finishes medical school, marries, becomes a doctor to the socially prominent, and has two daughters, Ursula and Camille.  His wife, Camille had meant everything to him before her untimely death, and when he begins to specialize in research as a virologist, he studies the influenza virus that had killed her, Haemophilus influenzae.   He has even named a certain strain of the virus after her, Camillus influenzae, and has written a number of papers which have "caused quite a stir in the medical world." In short, he's an up and comer who is quite focused on his work.  One night in April, his carriage driver hits someone on the street who had "just stepped out of the shadows" and as Gladstone goes to check out the poor guy, he has a major shock -- the man who's just been knocked down happens to be none other than his childhood angel.

In the hospital, the patient, whose name is Niccolo Calavanti,  makes everyone else uneasy and because of his particular quirks like never eating,  a rival of Gladstone's decides to take over the case.  Gladstone decides to take the patient home where he learns that Niccolo is in reality, a vampire, and where he also learns a bit about Niccolo's history.  When Gladstone's daughters return from being away, Ursula becomes fascinated with Niccolo,  but it's little Camille who draws his real attention -- she is an idiot savant who has the ability to hear a piece of music once, and reproduce it perfectly on the piano no matter the complexity.  But it isn't long before Niccolo leaves the Gladstone residence, taking little Camille with him, vanishing off the face of the earth, so it seems, without a trace.  Enter Lady Hespeth Dunaway, with an eerily similar story about the disappearance of her son, also an idiot savant, after Lady Dunaway had made Niccolo's acquaintance.  They decide to team up when they get a lead that Niccolo just might be in Paris, and thus begins the adventure of a lifetime.  In and around the main thrust of the story, other things are happening that have a lot of bearing on their quest, but those I'll leave other readers to discover, and even giving away the subtexts running throughout the story will give away the show, so I'll leave those as well.

What's lovely about this novel is that there are so many twists and turns here that as soon as I thought I had it figured out, everything changes, and then once I thought I had it sorted "this time", I was happily and completely wrong.  And as I said earlier, the novel has that amazing Victorian ambience combined with pulpy aesthetic that I just love -- an old dark house with lots of secrets,  a very well-sequenced set of pursuit-and-evade scenes that I think I held my breath through, and much, much more, all leading to a stunning conclusion.

While other readers may be busy reading modern vampire novels like these, which are what's current in the market, I was happy as a little clam curling up with my succession of chai lattes and The Delicate Dependency,  which is so very different and actually more satisfying than any other vampire novel I've read in a very long time.  Readers who are looking for the sinking of fangs into the neck may not find this one to their particular tastes, nor will readers looking for yet another vampire romance likely find satisfaction here.  It is a very intelligent book, but most of all, it's just plain fun. Caution: do NOT, I repeat, do NOT read the introduction first, and above all, do NOT read any review that gives away anything else. The fun is definitely in the unfolding here.

I know I tend to get overly enthusiastic about these old books, a feeling I know is not shared by everyone and I apologize about babbling so, but seriously, I can't help it.  I know when I've got my hands on something good, and well, this one definitely is among the cream of the crop.

hb#6: what would Halloween be without nightmares? Well, we can't let that happen: Nightmares: A New Decade of Modern Horror (ed.) Ellen Datlow

9781616962326
Tachyon, 2016 (November 1)
432 pp

advance reader copy from the publisher - thank you!!


Looking at the bigger picture, the choice of title for this collection is absolutely spot on, for indeed, the majority of these stories are truly the stuff of modern nightmares.

 Squirmworthy might also have been an appropriate title, since some of these stories were disturbing enough to the point where I had to put the book down, do something else, and then pick it up again.  There's no way I could have read this book in one sitting -- I'm sure that if I had, I'd have ended up with my own collection of nightmares and they still wouldn't have been as disturbing as what's between the covers in this book. It's definitely not for the faint of heart, and my guess is that for readers of modern horror, that's  a good thing. While personally I'd much rather curl up with a book of Victorian ghost stories or long-forgotten or neglected horror tales on the tamer side, I have to say that some of the stories in this book grabbed me  by the throat and just wouldn't let go.


My pick for best story here is one I've already read, but it is so horrific that I've never forgotten it.  "Little Pig" by Anna Taborska is the gut-wrenching tale of a mother who must protect her children and ends up paying a terrible price for their safety.  Oh my god.  Mark Samuels'  "Shallaballah" is another really good one, in which needing to get his face out there again, a famous soap opera star is taken to a strange clinic after a car accident disfigures his face. But is a comeback even possible? Admittedly I had to read this one twice, but the horror was all the better the second time.  Also requiring a second read was "Spectral Evidence," by Gemma Files.  The uniqueness in this author's storytelling method is to be applauded; it's one that owing to how it's written, must definitely be read between the lines.  A series of bizarre, randomly shuffled photos , helped by the "scribbles" on the backs of each  "appears to 'tell a story,' " of the deaths of two psychic investigators. One I've read before is Nicholas Royle's "Very Low-Flying Aircraft," the details of which I won't reveal.   It's a slow burn sort of horror story right up until the last minute when the lightbulb above my head goes off  -- my favorite type of creepy tale. And then we come to Laird Barron's "Strappado," which I have to say after reading it a number of times, still manages to scare the bejeezus out of me.  It's so good that whenever someone mentions Laird Barron, the first thing out of my mouth is "have you read 'Strappado'?"   Moving right along, I can't even begin to explain why I loved this story,  but "Was She Wicked? Was She Good" by M. Rickert had some particularly messed-up quality that appealed to me.  Here a little girl who is indulged by her mother has a terrible way of having a good time until her father decides he's had enough.

from slightlywarped.com

And now, for the rest of the stories. 

In "Sob in the Silence," by Gene Wolfe, a horror writer invites his old roommate and his family to his home, which has a rather sordid and cruel history. I will say no more. Brian Hodge's "Our Turn Too Will One Day Come" is another one I've read previously, a creepy tale about a horrific family legacy. Very nicely done, the horror builds slowly until we're all in on the secret.   "The Goosle" by Margo Lanagan puts a new, sad, and downright creepy spin on an old familiar tale, while Steve Duffy's "The Clay Party" does the same with a group of Donner Party-like travelers who put too much trust in their guide. The only negative here is that the author gives away the show very early on so I knew what was coming down the pike and just had to wait for it.  "Lonegan's Luck" by Stephen Graham Jones is different -- the next time a snake-oil salesman shows up in your town, run.  This one has an appropriate twist that brought forth a chuckle.

  "Mr. Pigsny" by Reggie Oliver details what happens when a man craves immortality and gets his wish. I've read better stories than this one by Oliver, but it's still disturbing.   Ray Cluley has an interesting tale here called "At Night, When the Demons Come By," a post-apocalyptic tale which, even though I'm not a fan of this sort of thing, was very much worth the read for two reasons: one, because of the demons themselves (one in particular),  and two (and more interesting),  it reveals how far people will go to ensure their own survival.  "The Shallows" by John Langan is an odd but good  story where a man's world changes forever and yet he continues on in his new, bizarre normal. I like Langan's work and this story is an example of why.  Considering that I detest zombie stories (haven't they been done to death???),  Dan Chaon's  "How We Escaped Our Certain Fate," surprised me with its poignancy.  Hats off to the author for making this one at least mature and meaningful.  I've already read Robert Shearman's "That Tiny Flutter of the Heart I Used to Call Love," which is delightfully strange. This time around I paid much more attention and realized that the future might not be so rosy for a new groom. This one is just messed up -- in a good way.  "Shay Corsham Worsted" is a story that is horrific in its implications, but one which is also funny in a strange sort of way. A would-be home invader has no clue of what he's set into motion when he chooses the home of an elderly man as his next target. As serious as things are here, the fun here is in the bureaucratic rigamarole. "The Atlas of Hell," by Nathan Ballingrud is another really good one that I liked much better this time around, but to tell is to spoil so I'll leave it at that.

from Harmonic Concordance

Owing  to personal preference,  a few of the stories in this book get way more into real-life horrors than I care to go in fiction.  These stories are likely better suited for readers who like more edgy horror than I do.  While the writing is not an issue (it's quite good, in fact),  the subject matter and especially the level of violence in these particular stories just make for uncomfortable reading. When it comes to this sort of horror, I'd rather just say no thank you and move along to something more tame.   The following stories were probably the most nightmarish of them all, with the exception of my least favorite in this group, "Dead Sea Fruit" by Kaaron Warren, which just sort flatlined for me. It was more on the silly side than the horror side, and with apologies, it's the only story this book where I thought "why the heck is this one even in here?"   Lisa Tuttle's  "Closet Dreams" is most definitely the stuff of modern nightmare, in which a girl disappears, is held captive, and dreams of escape, only to find worse horrors than she imagined. Simon Bestwick is represented here by his story "Hushabye," where a man in his "thirty-something dread of failure and the dark" goes after a certain sort of predator ... I've read  "Omphalos" by Livia Llewellyn before, and wasn't exactly over the moon about it, but the tale centers on a young girl who desperately needs to find own her place to escape. Caitlin Kiernan's  "Interstate Love Song (Murder Ballad No. 8)"  is also a nightmare scenario drawn from the real world -- just downright creepy.  And last but by no means least,  "Ambitious Boys Like You" by Richard Kadrey is another one that's just a bit too over the top for my taste, wherein two young men decide to break into a house and get much more than either of them bargained for.

******

Nightmares is one of those anthologies where there's pretty much something for everyone. The only suggestion I might make for the future is to include more work by authors whose stories don't usually make it into these anthologies. In my very humble reader person's opinion, an anthology should work to showcase the best of what's out there, but when I'm seeing the same authors pop up over and over again in these collections,  it  makes me wonder who else may be out there whose work may be going unrecognized but who may be just as good of a writer as the ones reflected here.

As I'm quite fond of saying, horror is in the eye of the beholder and my favorites may not be to the liking of others.  In short, what I'm trying to say is that everyone brings something different to the reading table so this book isn't necessarily a one-size-fits-all sort of thing, but for me it's most certainly filled with enough quality material that I can easily recommend it to any horror reader.  It's a beyond-good collection on the whole, very satisfying and downright chill producing.

Thanks so much to Tachyon for my copy!

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.

The Tarantulas' Parlor and Other Unkind Tales, by Léon Bloy

9781943813155

Snuggly Books, 2016

originally published as Histoires desobligeantes,

translated by Brian Stableford

218 pp

paperback

"There is always someone who is not, or might not be, the person one supposes."

                                                                                          -- 163

First, before I say anything else, I have to offer a huge thanks to Anna for my copy and for keeping me in Snuggly's book-release email loop. 

Simply put, this book is beyond excellent.  I'm still a relative newbie in the world of French fin-de-siècle  and decadent literature, and a name that has kept popping up is Léon Bloy.  So I was over the moon when Anna asked me if I wanted to read this book, a collection of 32 short stories which, in the words of Brian Stableford in the introduction to this volume,  reflect Bloy's 

"search for a particular naturalism of his own -- a naturalism which, not in spite of but because of its cruelty and its infusion with religious conviction, was markedly different in stripe from the Naturalism of Émile Zola."  (xxiii)

Erik Morse, writing  in The Paris Review also reveals that Bloy was not alone in seeking something different:  evidently by the 1870s, he

"had intimately acquainted himself with Beaudelaire, Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Huysmans, and Barbey d'Aurevilly, in whose writings he discovered a kindred nostalgia for an aristocratic medievalism, which opposed the bourgeois materialism of the modern zeitgeist. These so-called decadents, accompanied by artists like Félicien Rops and Odilon Redon, transmuted the urban pessimism of Zola's naturalism into a preternatural landscape of demons and saints engaged in an eschatological battle for the soul of humanity." 

Let me just say that if it's realism he was striving for, it shows in these tales, not only in his choice of earthy language, but also his interest in the more marginalized elements of society.  The Tarantulas' Parlor and Other Unkind Tales is a delightful blend of dark fiction, dark humor, savage storytelling and outrageous observations;  a majority of these little gems turns on the idea of exposing, as the quotation with which I started this post says "someone who is not, or might not be, the person one supposes," an  idea which is carried throughout the book I will also say that some of these stories are wicked funny, subtle,  laugh-out-loud worthy, and actually bringing forth a belly laugh in one case,  "The Tarantula's Parlor."  I also appreciate the way Stableford translated these tales -- there are a few instances where he'll leave a phrase or a word that doesn't fully translate well from its French context into English, and in footnotes he explains why.  Personally, I find that a very smart way to handle translation issues that arise, and I do wish more translators would take the same sort of care in their work. And as an added bonus, each little tale begins with a dedication from Bloy to someone in his personal orbit, and Stableford gives the reader footnotes containing a brief background on the connection between the author and the person to whom the story is dedicated.  It is a superb collection that serious readers do not want to miss.

Feel free not to read on if you don't want even the slightest hint of the stories in this book, which is all I can put together in a timely manner here.  Let me just say that each story is quite worthy of lengthy discussion, but this is neither the time nor the place. Favorites are marked with *.

"The Tisane" - in which a young man overhears his mother's bizarre confession
" The Old Man of the House," where a prodigal father returns to his daughter with some startling consequences
"Monsieur Pleur's Religion," the story of a miser but even more so about the people who despise him
* "The Tarantula's Parlor," which is  an incredibly funny tale about an evening spent with a certain poet
"Plan for a Funeral Oration," the short tale of a literary figure to whom "literary genius had been given to him as a bonus, but that was the trifle of his torture."
"The Captives of Longjumeau" -- A married couple suffering from their own distractions are always on the edge of great adventures but ...
* "A Bad Idea" is the story of a young woman who discovers she has married not one, but four men at the same time.  One of my favorite lines also appears here:

"To have but one soul and one brain divided within four epidermises -- which is to say, in the final analysis, to renounce one's personality, to become a number, a quantity, a package, fractions of a collective being. What a conception of genius!" 

"Two Phantoms" explores the friendship of "two incorrigible virgins," and has a great, funny twist.
* "The Terrible Punishment of a Dentist" -- is an Oh Dear God, dark sort of story in which "a happiness so dearly conquered" becomes "poisoned by the memory of death." Then it gets even worse.
* "Alain Chartier's Reawakening" is another story that, when all is said and done, made me laugh out loud. I can't really say anything about this one or I'll give away the show.
"The Obliging Stroker" A man finds his "Ideal" who doesn't want him, but he doesn't seem to get the message. Another laughworthy entry, for sure.
"The Monsieur's Past," takes us back into the sad,serious zone and into the life of a young "heroine," who wants to marry a "mediocrity among mediocrities."

Leon Bloy, from Paris Review

"Whatever You Want!" Not a peep from me about this one, but the end is a bit of a surprise.
* "The Last Firing" Now here is a good one that also works well for horror readers -- about a "whitener of sepulchers (sic) and his son. It's actually shiver producing.
* "The End of Don Juan" -- Admittedly, this one required a second reading and a lot of online reading in mythology to get to the heart of what's happening here, but once the "aha" lightbulb went on, it was like getting the punchline of a joke and it made me laugh. I can't spill this one either...the fun is in figuring it out.
"The Martyr" is not at all funny, but is a sadly tragic tale of misguided vengeance on the part of a woman known for her "sublime piety." Right.
"Suspicion" uncovers the story of a man "devoured" by unfounded jealousy and suspicion.
"Calypso's Telephone" is next, in which a divorcée makes an amazing discovery about the truth of marriage.
"Worn Out" -- a man beyond the point of down on his luck makes a new acquaintance who makes him an offer he can't really refuse.
* "A Failed Sacrilege" finds a woman used to having the world handed to her on a plate about to meet her match.
"There's Trouble Brewing!" A group of men described as "the canons of Infinity, the protonotories of the Absolute, the medical executioners of every probable opinion and every respected commonplace" meet together and swap strange tales to prove that "it's within the power of any audacious individual to transform himself into a thunderbolt and to circulate like the Gorgon in the midst of honorable crowds." But at the end...
"The Silver Mote" follows a man who "had the misfortune to be afflicted by clairvoyance in which a large number of honest men had died."

from AZ Quotes

"A Well-Nourished Man" comes next, in which the narrator reveals that he never misses an "opportunity to promote the value of my contemporaries, and that it is a need for me to spread over suffering hearts the balm of my adjectives." In this case, his subject is an illuminator, one of the "best-nourished men ever observed beneath the mountains of the moon."
* "The Bean" concerns a cheesemaker who finds out a lot about his wife once she's dead.  This one is dark and twisted, but with a darkly-humorous edge.
"Digestive Proposals"  --  Another darkly funny story taking place among a group aspiring "to the supreme Athenianism" where Apemantus the Cynic is a prized guest. Tonight's topic: putting an end to the poor.
"A Cry From the Depths" finds the young daughter of a whore who has resisted following in her mother's footsteps at the pinnacle of suffering.
"The Reading Room" follows next, in which an entire household must share one reading room, to the detriment of young Orthodoxie.
"No One's Perfect" is about a man who "felt like an apostle," desired "the happiness of the human species," and  "killed in order to live, because it was not a stupid trade."
In "Let's Be Reasonable" a pillar of society and "precious example of professional integrity"  "whose eloquence could have disentangled the very filaments of chaos and petrified the darkness"  refuses to explain to his daughter why he hasn't eaten for two days.
* "Jocasta on the Sidewalk" is another one where the contents will have to be left unspoken.
"Cain's Lucky Find" finds a group of friends together over dinner, talking about what sorts of things they'd discovered on the public highway.  One story wins hands down -- with a chilling ending.
"The Animal-Lover" rounds out this collection, and tells the story of a penitent who sees the gaze of someone he killed long ago on a bronze image of the Lamenting Virgin.

*****

My first excursion into the mind of Leon Bloy, and certainly not my last, The Tarantulas' Parlor and Other Unkind Tales is a book I can certainly and without any reservations whatsoever recommend to readers who find great joy in exploring this period in the history of literature, or to readers who, like myself, are absolutely fascinated by what moves people to do what they do.  It is absolutely, hands down an exquisite collection of stories.

hb#4: The Graveyard Apartment, by Mariko Koike

9781250060549
Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press, 2016
originally published 1988
translated by Deborah Boliver Boehm
325 pp

hardcover

".... something isn't quite right about this idyllic tableau..."


Halloween just wouldn't be Halloween without a graveyard somewhere, and this one just happens to be in Tokyo.  And in the middle of this graveyard sits the Central Plaza Mansion, home to the Kanos, who have an apartment on the eighth floor.  It's a luxury space with everything a family could possibly want, including a storage space in the basement.  The one drawback is the view, the only thing that Misao Kano doesn't like:

"...nobody in their right mind would intentionally invest in a property surrounded on three sides by a cemetery, a temple where funerals were held, and a busy crematorium." 

However, since Misao had felt compelled to give up her job due to an unfortunate incident involving husband Teppei's first wife, the price was too perfect to pass up.

The Kano family's first day in the apartment is somewhat marred by the odd death of daughter Tamao's bird, who, the little girl claims,  comes back to talk to her at night to tell her that where he's at now is a place "full of bad monsters with big scary faces..." and that "when those monsters speak, a big wind starts to blow and everyone gets sucked into a giant hole."

Life goes on as the Kanos meet the few neighbors in their building, enroll Tamao at school, and Misao begins working from home.  Every so often they notice some peculiar things, for example,  Misao starts seeing feathers from the dead bird they'd buried, one day TV had  a "humanoid shadow" on a particular channel, and a drunken neighbor tells Teppei that she hates the "horrible hellhole" of the building's basement.  Misao isn't a big fan either, especially after little Tamao meets with an inexplicable accident down there and for some reason they can't access the basement to reach her until a neighbor who just happens to be a spirit medium is able to make the elevator work again.   But the clincher comes as one by one, the residents of Central Plaza Mansion begin to move out of the building until  ....

So far, this brief synopsis sounds like something right up my horror-reading alley, and it had potential to become a definite spine chiller had I not felt like I was reading a twisted Japanese version of the movie Poltergeist.  Not only was this book a "been there, done that" sort of thing for me, but it moved at a snail's pace -- while some weird things happened, they did so sort of piecemeal, with a lot of space in between which for me only deadened any sort of creep factor I was looking for. Acknowledging that it did have its moments, these were not enough to make the sense of horror at all sustainable over the course of the novel.   By the time the "last thirty pages" came along, which were supposed to have readers "holding your breath" according to the back cover blurb, I was just ready to be done and to leave the Kanos to their fate.  I'll also say that there was a major opportunity to make this a stronger horror novel that was missed and if anyone wants to talk about it after reading, let me know. It has to do with the so-called "dark secret" alluded to on the dustjacket blurb (which actually, everyone except the Kanos' neighbors knew about already so it wasn't actually a secret at all - who writes this stuff?) and a certain memorial tablet and shrine that somehow forgot to be taken care of...

Once again, I'm the little red fish swimming against the tide of blue, since this book seems to be making horror readers everywhere happy people.  I really, really wanted to like it, but the truth is that it just didn't wow me.  I had decided to read a more modern horror story to prove to myself that I wasn't a one-trick pony taking pleasure only in vintage chills, but it just wasn't the right one for me.  That doesn't mean it might not be someone else's cup of cha,  but in this case, it just wasn't mine.