Missing Review Catch-Up II

It's not been long since I put together my first missing review catch-up blog, but already a few more books have slipped through the cracks. As before, these are things that I skipped for various individual reasons, generally because I didn't feel I could write a half-decent full post about each one. Plus, I am a bit lazy.

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The Pratchett Portfolio (1996)
Terry Pratchett with Art by Paul Kidby

When I was a teenager I was already obsessive-compulsive with books, frequently scouring the bibliography page of my favourite authors' books. Even back then Terry Pratchett's was one of the largest, including not only his regular novels but various off-shoot works, and of all of these The Pratchett Portfolio was always the most intriguing- I really had no idea what it was, and I don't think I ever spotted it on ny bookshop shelves. Fast-forward to the present, and I found a copy in the usual charity bookshop place. Alas to my thirteen-year old self, it'd be very disappointing.

Though Pratchett's name dominates the cover, this is mostly the work of artist Paul Kidby. Released a year after he took over from the late Josh Kirby as Discworld cover artist, it features his detailed pencil sketches of the universe's chief characters, each given short biographies written by Pratchett, with the occasional brief bit of interesting design information. The art itself is very good, though I'm no art critic, as Kidby really does put definitive faces to the cast. The problem is that the book is extremely short, as in maybe forty pages long altogether, with Pratchett's writing filling perhaps a quarter of each page. I read the entire thing in about ten minutes, including gazing at the art. It's so short that I can only really describe it as exploitative of fans, who get very little back from their £7. I only bought it for 4, pretty much just so I could review it for this blog, and I still feel ripped-off.

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The Ancestor's Tale (2004)
Richard Dawkins

My occasional quest to semi-educated myself through the means of popular science books took on its most intimidating quest yet, with Richard Dawkins' absolutely epic The Ancestor's Tale. This mammoth tome weighs in at a whopping 670-pages of evolutionary information, as Dawkins takes a systematic approach at again trying to hammer some of the important details about evolution into my thick head. The often-controversial author, currently offending about a million people each week on Twitter, attempts to work backwards through the history of life on Earth itself; starting with species of flora and fauna from the present day and moving through stages of evolutionary convergences until receding into the proverbial primordial soup. It would be practically impossible to write a truly comprehensive catalogue of this type, but Dawkins Puts in a herculean effort.

The problem that I have, and thus the cause of this petty excuse for a mini-review here rather than a lovely full-page spread, is that I'm too stupid to keep up with such constant factual information. After a while, with every science book I read, my brain starts to actively rebel against the horror of genuinely educational non-fiction and my reading slows to a crawl. It took me a long while to read the second half of this book, retaining less and less information as I went, so I'm in no position to give this a proper review. I can, however, safely say that The Ancestor's Tale is a superb achievement for Dawkins in putting such an ambitious project to paper. As I do with all of his books, I still finished it feeling I understood more about the nature of life itself, even if I'm not brilliant at articulating it.

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 The Castle of Otranto (1764)
Horace Walpole

Curiously just a day after finishing this, an article turned up on BBC News about the importance of this book, so if you want to read about it from people who actually know what they're talking about, go here. Anyway, The Castle of Otranto, like Marlowe's Faustus from last review catch-up, is a book I was first introduced to at university as an important piece of genre fiction. Also like Faustus, I found this particular edition of Otranto included with another related book, 'reviewed' below. The key reason that I'm not giving Otranto a full review is that I don't think it would be fair, since from a normal critical viewpoint it's actually a fairly awful book; meandering, overwritten, with one dimensional characters and a plot that doesn't make any sense. It remains a memorable classic in English literature though for the influence it had by essentially being the first ever proper Gothic horror novel.

Set in a vaguely-defined classically gothic Germanic castle, The Castle of Otranto follows the trials and tribulations of Manfred and his family. Manfred is sent panicking by some ghostly manifestations when his son is crushed by a giant helmet that apparates for no reason, and so tries to reinforce his power by remarrying at any cost. The rest of the plot reads like a series of random events, punctuated by unconvincing, overwrought narration, and as such is both fun and stupid. It's interesting to read this so far in the future and remind yourself of how Otranto and books like it have eventually inundated popular culture completely, but other than that there's not much to take from it.

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The Mysterious Mother (1791)
Horace Walpole

As was the case with Marlowe's Faustus and Goethe's Faust last catch-up, Otranto and The Mysterious Mother came together in one volume- though this edition I bought seems to be a study guide-, collecting Horace Walpole's only pieces of fiction. Like Otranto, Mysterious Mother is a gothic horror, but this time in the form of a play. The subject matter is actually rather murky, far more so than Otranto (written almost thirty years earlier), involving the classical crime of incest, leading to murder, drama, and possibly the first ever example in fiction of an evil gothic monk. It also happens to be mostly terrible.

Stylistically, Walpole does what 99% of all other play-writes have consistently done since, and rips off Shakespeare and Marlowe. As a result the dialogue and stage directions are bombastic, epic-sounding declarations meant to capture the audience's attention and emphasise the importance of the drama. Unfortunately trying to live up to the dramatic standards of William Shakespeare is never really going to work, especially for a man who Otranto proved clearly has a limited handle on prose fiction, and as a result the entire play reads as hokey and self-important. I finished it, but may have lost many details in the read through thanks to how dull and unworthy Walpole's writing was. Lacks the charm and importance of Otranto too.

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Judge Dredd- The Complete Case Files 12 (2009)
2000AD

After a good six-month break from this marathon trek through the complete history of Judge Dredd, I was surprised to find upon my return that we'd already reached the late; probably due to the surprising amount of time it took for 2000AD to add colour to the proceedings. Volume 12 catches Dredd in the wake of the Oz saga (collected, of course in vol 11) where his adventures down under have left him with questions about his ability to continue patrolling the super metropolis that is Mega City One. Meanwhile, in the real world, creative differences regarding that saga resulted in the end of the writing partnership of Alan Davis and John Wagner, and as a result authorship of the strips collected here bounces back and forth. It's probably because of that that Volume 12 avoids throwing itself into any similarly-sized epics to instead build for the future.

Most of the stories included are quick two-parters, some of which receive sequels later on to wrap things up. Wagner and Davis stick to the tried and tested Dredd formula of utilizing the dystopian sci-fi as satire (and sometimes almost pantomime), each time exploring a new corner of the city and finding a new unlucky criminal to face Dredd's wrath. As a result there's nothing I'd call essential contained in this volume, at least as it relates to Dredd storyline lore- although it does contain the first appearance of a character set to play a prominent role in the future, in the clone Judge Kraken, and continues the development of quirky 12-year-old serial killer PJ Maybe, resisting the urge to have a Dredd-related payoff in these stories for the sake of building the character up. Other stories involve Dredd visiting Japan, battling a proto-Batman, and performing in a rather twisted Wizard of Oz parody in Twister (a personal favourite Dredd story of mine). So, nothing ground-breaking here, just another year of strange adventures notched on Dredd's belt, in classic Wagner style.

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Terry Pratchett's Discworld 23- Carpe Jugulum

Carpe Jugulum

Victor Gollancz

Terry Pratchett

1998

Other Terry Pratchett Reviews- The Colour of Magic - The Light Fantastic - Equal Rites - Mort - Sourcery - Wyrd Sisters - Pyramids - Guards! Guards! - Eric - Moving Pictures - Reaper Man - Witches Abroad - Small Gods - Lords and Ladies - Men At Arms - Soul Music - Interesting Times - Maskerade - Feet of Clay - Hogfather - Jingo - The Last Continent - Raising Steam - A Blink of the Screen - Sky1 Adaptations - Dodger - The Long Earth (w Stephen Baxter)

“I never understood that story, anyway,” said Nanny. “I mean, if I knew I’d got a heel that would kill me if someone stuck a spear in it, I’d go into battle wearing very heavy boots—”

I used to love Carpe Jugulum for a while, more so than any other Discworld novel (aside from Small Gods). It was first published during the time I was still frantically reading through Pratchett's back catalogue, and though I'd yet to reach the financial freedom of buying each new hardback on release, each new paperback release was very exciting for this series with a mere twenty-two installments so far. Fast-forward to the present day, and I just don't get particularly excited about new Pratchett books like I once did. His output has massively increased over the past few years as he takes advantage of what might be the end of his writing career, and I've not been able to catch up. These days I actually resent the thought of buying new hardback books, since they take up so much damned space.

Carpe Jugulum, with its typically fantastic illustrated cover by Josh Kirby (one of his final Discworld covers before his death in 2001, sadly), was a big deal to me back in 1999. It would've been an even bigger deal had I realised at the time that this, like The Last Continent prior, was a landmark character book. As Continent was the last proper Rincewind book, Carpe Jugulum (topically 'size the throat') is the final 'proper' novel for an equally important selection of characters; the Witches. The expanded (after the events of Maskerade) coven of Macbeth-inspired ladies had been involved in perhaps the most high-octane adventures in the series, saving the tiny, magic-fueled kingdom of Lancre  (and the world) from false monarchs, evil witches, even more evil elves, and Andrew Lloyd-Webber. For this, their final adventure together, Pratchett serves up their deadliest villains yet; vampires.

The vampires of the Disc are strong, vicious, and with minds of steel. The problems begin when King Verence invites (his first mistake) the Magpyr vampire family of Uberwald to Lancre as guests, and they promptly and efficiently go about taking over the castle through traditional vampire mind control. Not even Granny Weatherwax can fight the unbending power of the vampire mind, leaving the kingdom seemingly powerless to resist. It's a very straightforward plot by the author's standards, which is the key reason that, in hindsight, I don't view the novel as a Discworld classic anymore. The framework is strikingly similar to the earlier Witches book Lords and Ladies, suggesting it's likely that Pratchett's choice to give up on the Witches series-within-a-series was due to his boredom with the characters, resulting in the recycled ambiance.

“I mean, it's one thing saying you've got the best god, but sayin' it's the only real one is a bit of a cheek, in my opinion. I know where I can find at least two any day of the week. And they say everyone starts out bad and only gets good by believin' in Om, which is frankly damn nonsense.” 

The vampires are interesting creatures though, since Pratchett uses his to satirise the various portrayals of them through the history of pop culture. The parents of the Magpyr's are very traditional figures, with Vlad Magpyr a Bela Lugosi-style Dracula archetype, while the youth are far more inspired by early-to-mid 90's vampire portrayals, with dollops of angst and style in equal measure. Pratchett plays with this very specific generation gap for humour wonderfully, bringing to the forefront of the novel the newest addition to the coven, the very overweight and unconfident Agnes Nitt (originally of Maskerade) to represent everything about humanity that the vampire is not. While the two younger Vampyre's are faintly ridiculous, Count Vlad is not, and the intensity of his battle of wills with Granny Weatherwax provides the real tension behind everything. Pratchett usually tries to keep the full extent of his characters' various powers a mystery, avoiding the temptation for a narrative arms race and ruining the aura, but the events of Carpe Jugulum are an exception to that.

In conclusion then, I find Carpe Jugulum one of the easiest Discworld books to pick up and race through, thanks to the direct plot and immediately recognisable pop culture parodies. As a final Witches book it suffers through a lack of ingenuity compared to, say, Witches Abroad, but makes up for a certain amount of that through the intensity of the action. It's certainly a blockbuster, lacking some finesse but giving Pratchett the chance to give his final words on a segment of horror culture that almost everything has already been said about. When I was sixteen-years-old and constantly watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, this was the book for me. It's lost sparkle in the proceeding years, but it's still a fun interrogation of vampire tropes with danger and charm. It's just a shame the next Discworld book, one with very similar themes, won't be getting such a favourable review.

Max Brooks- World War Z

World War Z

Crown Publishing

Max Brooks

2006

“Most people don't believe something can happen until it already has. That's not stupidity or weakness, that's just human nature.”

Max Brook's 2006 pseudo-investigative journalism novel-turned-literary sale juggernaut World War Z by explaining how zombies took over the world prompted me to wonder the same question; just how did zombies take over the world? Well, the world of popular fiction on page and screen, at any rate. Sure, George R. Romero's first two zombie films Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead were brilliant, popular horror movies, but each sequel offered diminishing returns in quality or inspiration, and I really don't recall any big mainstream zombie fiction in the gap between Dawn of the Dead and the sudden explosion of popularity over the past six to eight years (if you discount cult successes like the Evil Dead films at anyrate). I think a large amount of credit for elevating the living dead so highly in the public imagination should go to Robert Kirkman and Image Comics The Walking Dead series from 2003, and obviously the subsequent TV show was massive, but maybe just as much credit should be given to (probably) the biggest selling zombie fiction novel of all time...

Brooks' more popular follow-up to his first novel The Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z seems to have achieved a seriously impressive feat in terms of critical reception in relation to book sales, as in; it's all pretty good. I've lost count of the amount of times I've read people praising this novel over the last eight years, so it was about time that I, as self-processed zombie lover, read this book... and so I did, and found it a pretty quick and engaging read over its 300+ pages- but not without some noticeable flaws that stop me from seeing it as a future Penguin Modern Classic. Essentially the critical successes and failures of this book all ride on the author's specific and, some would say, ingenious choice of narrative formatting. The over-arching plot is instantly familiar; a deadly new virus resembling rabies suddenly appears in China, and a lack of understanding or investigation allows it to spread to other countries. As time goes on and the virus spreads, its effects quickly become clear- and no I'm not going to bother explaining them- leading to mass panic across the world as each country scrambles to send in its military to battle to problem, which all leads to the full-on World War Z of the title.

Max Brooks

It's easy to see how a premise like that could turn the heads of the millions of living dead fans out there and it certainly turned mine, but it's also the type of idea that isn't going to go anywhere without a capable author to stamp their mark on a simplistic genre. Brooks decision to frame the book as a series of in-depth interviews was an inspired and brave one, and ultimately directly results in both my favourite and least favourite aspects of the project. I'll be cynical and start with the problems; most notably Brooks set himself a difficult challenge when he forced himself to create dozens of individual characters from all over the globe; especially the first person interview-subject narrative meant each character needed their own voice, distinctive enough to avoid repetition and the subsequent eventual destruction of any audience suspense of disbelief. Overall I think he personally just about gets away with creating a decent ratio of interesting to inevitably dull characters. I apologise for being a literary snob, but to me Brooks really isn't a standout prose author like the kind I usually fawn over, but instead a perfectly capable storyteller with a sense of the screenwriter about him in terms of his mostly realistic dialogue. There were some examples of characters whose voices seemed identical, but then there were also some standout hits.

My favourite of these were two characters who gave their stories and then promptly teamed-up, Kondo Tatsumi and Sensei Tomonaga. With those two Brooks impressed me with his ability to make their voices distinctive from the book's many Westerners, and in doing so composed two compelling short stories containing action, horror and a poignant tone. One of the major advantages of choosing this type of format for his fictional journalism for Brooks was his chance to write a series of short stories with thematic similarities, letting him repeatedly capture the readers attention with fresh scenarios while constantly reinforcing the main points he wanted to make. Unfortunately for me, one of the key themes that just kept on reoccuring was Brooks interest in the technical aspects of war, leading him to veer away from the zombie killing and character refining for the sake of giving lots of details about the various military hardware being used to fight the war. I have no idea if any (or all) of them are even real but I assume so, and so that sort of writing most likely gives the book an air of legitimacy, but frankly I couldn't care less about any of that stuff. I wasn't really interested in much of the war-based drama to be honest, particularly in the fragmented way Brooks presents it through the various interviews.

In my opinion World War Z isn't good enough overall to deserve to be called a modern classic, but I did mostly enjoy it and can absolutely see it as a cult classic novel. The scope and ambition is admirable and leads to moments of great storytelling, but I don't think Brooks had the prose voice nor spark of ingenious to pull the the pieces into enough of a cohesive plot for the book to reach the levels that it might have. I think it could've especially done with being edited for length and really needed a better ending, but I can't help respecting how Brooks' approach to the stagnating zombie genre helped resurrect the living dead once more by moving away from the cliche of a small group of survivors by taking it global. A fun, derivative book that I likely won't read again, but should fondly remember.

Ryu Murakami- Piercing

Piercing

Bloomsbury

Ryu Murakami

1994 (Japanese)/ 2008 (English)

“That's when he hit her, when he saw how scared she was. He couldn't bear it that she was frightened and asking for help. Asking for help is wrong. Because there isn't any such thing as help in this world.”

 Normally when I pick a quote to slap at the top of these here reviews, I try to (quickly) choose one that feels to me as though it presents the essence of its originating book in a positive light. Today it's a little different, as the above quote from Ryu Murakami's psychological horror novel Piercing very much annoys me, more so, in fact, the more I look at it. It's the short, stark sentences that attempt to punch through the page in a blunt, straightforward manner that purports to give the reader no-bullshit truth. It desperately wants to look both cinematic and alternative, and it sounds like something written by an author desperate for you to think he's really cool, like the next coming of Chuck Bukowski or something. Of course it's possible I might be looking a little too much in to this, but, to get to the point, to me that quote does indeed represent the essence of its origin, but this time as a collection of pretty much everything wrong with it. Yes, this is going to be a negative review of a book written by a man named Murakami, but thankfully this time it's a different one.

I first came across a book by Ryu Murakami almost ten years ago. I took out In the Miso Soup from the trusty Aberystwyth Public Library and told myself afterwards that I enjoyed it and wouldn't mind reading more of this man. I'm not sure if I trust my more adolescent self with book reviews (and thus inevitably seem to always find myself going back to those books), and my experience with Piercing suggests I'm right to be suspicious. Let me start off by saying that I didn't hate the book by any means, and actually read through it very quickly, curious to witness the ending. In a sense, my quickness in finishing Piercing can be seen as a quite relevant criticism based on what Murakami was trying to achieve. The blurb on the inside of the hardcover jacket sums up what that is quite succinctly, by describing the scenario of a main character who is trying to resist the urge to stab his newborn baby with an ice-pick. So, incredibly weird Asian horror bloodbath it is, then.

Ryu Murakami

In reality though, that blurb fails to accurately describe the bulk of the book, which is about the psychopathic inner struggles of a very disturbed man named Kawashima Masayuki. As the book begins he's leading an apparently normal life as a married man and new father, but Kawashima suffered a stereotypically disturbed childhood that left him with demons he struggles to conceal from his family. In a bizarre attempt to alleviate the pain, Kawashima decided that the thing to do is to murder a prostitute, and so he books a holiday off work, tells his wife he's going on vacation, and sets his plan in motion. Once Kawashima decided upon a suitable victim, Murakami inserts her into the narrative as almost a co-lead character and starts delving into her own twisted back story. The girl, named Chiaki, is just as insane as Kawashima, and the main action of the book takes place once the two of them properly meet.

I do respect Ryu Murakami for the effort he put in to writing what is intended to be a very thoughtful, philosophical psychological horror novel, and efforts in trying to make it more than the average horror genre peace through various narrative techniques (the most prominent of which being the parallels between the two main characters), but unfortunately it didn't make the grade. The chief problem for me was that the quality of Murakami's prose is far too limited to achieve his goals. I think the movie director in him was searching for a precise atmosphere of darkness, unpredictability and self-loathing to reflect the characters, but I found almost every sentence to be far too clunky and detached to achieve that effect. It was detachment from the attempted atmosphere that enabled me to read the book quickly; since I wasn't apprehensive about what might happen to any of the characters and I didn't at all feel the need to slow down to absorb any impressive prose.

From what little I know of Ryu Murakami as an author, film maker and all-around creative force, it seems to me that he was looking for something that reflected  notable alternative literature like Palahuniuk's Fight Club or East Ellis' American Psycho, a modern suburban mindfuck designed to leave a long-lasting mark in the reader's mind. Unfortunately I don't think Murakami, Oriental renaissance man that he is, is a particularly good writer, or at least no better than an average horror genre scribe. Coming up with a shocking premise with hidden depths sounds great, but when what's meant to be meaningful is lost in generic mediocrity then the shock value isn't worth much either.

W. Somerset Maugham- The Magician

The Magician

Vintage Classics

 W. Somerset Maugham

1908

Other Maugham Reviews- Cakes and Ale - The Magician - The Razor's Edge

  

"Yet magic is no more the art of employing consciously invisible means to produce visible effects. Will, love, and imagination are magic powers that everyone possesses; and whoever knows how to develop them to their fullest extent is a magician. Magic hs but one dogma, namely, that the seen is the measure of the unseen."

Riding a mysterious crest of enthusiasm that pushed me forward into writing four posts in about two weeks (side affects yet to be determined), I raced through my next book of choice with a velocity which I haven't experienced in some time, finishing it in about two days (not an impressive brag by any means, but for me the rigours of daily life and its distractions have increased my average reading time for each new book to roughly infinity). Partially, I must admit, this speed was down to the fact that I wrote The Darkened Wardrobe and it reminded me very precisely of just how out of control my unread book pile had become, but the absolute core reason was simply that W. Somerset Maugham's The Magician was the perfect book to capture my attention from beginning to end.

My first exposure to Maugham was through The Razor's Edge, clumsily reviewed on this blog during that curious period where the reviewer only has the context of the one book by the author to go by. It left me with certain impressions of Maugham's style and themes (some of which were even correct) and left me open to more by the author, but things didn't become clearer until reading The Magician opened things up for me. The modern copy I read opens with an author's note entitled A Fragment of Autobiography (presumably included in all new editions of the novel, as I can't imagine reading The Magician without the invaluable context given here) which lays out the obvious inspiration for this book, and in turn completely captured my attention.

Mr. Crowley

Perhaps the most famous of all of W. Somerset Maugham's work (though some might argue the case for Of Human Bondage), The Magician's notoriety exists as an alternative-classic; that is, a novel that primarily appeals to literary hipsters looking for something a little different in tone to your average Charles Dickens novel, and that's because it is decidedly both a gothic horror masterpiece and the birthplace of a very notorious character. As Maugham explains in his introduction; during his earlier years as a struggling younger author attending high societal events, he became well acquainted with a certain Mr. Aleister Crowley. Though the Wikipedia link offers far more actual information than I'm going to bother with, I'm guessing that most people reading will at least recognise the name as the most famous occultist in history. Maugham's introduction sets the scene more firmly for the transition of Aliester Crowley into Oliver Haddo, the villain of The Magician, as a fictional version of Crowley who actually possesses the knowledge of arcane, sinister magics that Crowley claimed to.

The Magician, as a novel, isn't concerned with the stark reality of Crowley's claims and styling, but instead goes about structuring the character of Oliver Haddo into a complex and cultured, if far from original, villain. As Maugham's novels often are, it is set amongst the high class cafes and homes of Paris and London, and the introduction of Haddo is based upon Maugham's encounters with Crowley. The story begins with a small group of characters encountering Haddo for the first time and reacting to his outlandish claims and appearance. Morbidly obese yet tall, handsome and compelling, Haddo regales his new acquaintances with outlandish claims about his life and beliefs, both fascinating and disgusting them in equal measure. The character of Arthur Burdon is the lead protagonist and the reader's primary identification figure, as a witty, slightly withdrawn skeptic who immediately takes a huge dislike to Haddo. Arthur's fiance, Margaret Dauncey is similarly disgusted and disbelieving, but nonetheless is drawn by Haddo's heir of mystery to indulge his stories. The overall progression of the plot from then on is fairly simple and predictable; Arthur and Haddo inevitably clash and Haddo is embarrassed, from which point the magician plans his silent revenge by using his clandestine means to take what is most valuable to Arthur.  


Earlier on I described The Magician as a gothic horror, and it is that in every regard. Maugham's prose style is lavishly detailed in provoking the tone from every line, very positively reminiscent of Victorian English authors like Dickens, but with an extra emphasis on promoting mystery and suspense. I actually feel somewhat silly even attempting to review the talent of an author like Maugham, since he's so clearly an absolute master of the English language, able to construct a sentence with a natural talent few others can hope to match. There's a great sense of adventure that comes with the supernatural elements of this book, combining with the idea of a somewhat heroic protagonist like Arthur to make this reader immediately and favourably compare this with the most famous of all the gothic masterpieces, Bram Stoker's Dracula. Perhaps a lazy example, but Maugham's Oliver Haddo has the same undeniable charismatic personality as Stoker's vampire, to the extent where he leaps off the page as the constant star. It would be easy to predict dozens of re imaginations of Haddo, though the only one I know of is Alan Moore's usage of the character as a primary villain in his literary-obsessed comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (at some point to be a focus of my Comics Snobbery posts). Also, without giving too much away as regards to the plot, there are elements of the story very much routed in the other gothic horror classic Frankenstein, but with a hint of HP Lovecraft mixed in too.

While I hate to try and criticise a work like this, if I must then it has to be on the same grounds that Aliester Crowley himself critiqued it under (in an article in Vanity Fair circa 1908), it's simply not very original; nothing particularly unique occurs in the plot or with the characters. This didn't bother me one bit, as it's clear from the introduction, the blurb, and the opening chapters that this is a stylistic piece of genre fiction merely concerned with doing what it does as well as possible. Maugham's crafting of the environment is sublime, and once the plot and characters have been established within the gothic horror genre it allows the author to present his own themes and motifs also prevalent in his other works. Maugham focusses on love, obsession, and the thin line separating the two. As in Dracula it is the fear of loss and helplessness in relation to the fate of a loved one that pushes through the tension and sadness surrounding the somewhat unbelievable, almost pulp-fiction like plot. Arthur is a simple protagonist designed to transmit the easily identifiable fear of helplessly losing a loved one to the reader, and then to show the clenched-fist, gritted-teeth, do-what-has-to-be-done English gentleman style response. It is glorious stuff, five star genre fiction that I would mark as an essential read to anyone with an interest in this style of dark, supernatural-based story, particularly as an example of a classical style addressing a subject that's sure to be immediately recognizable to a modern reader thanks to the deluge of similar supernatural stories of today.

Richard Matheson- I Am Legend

I Am Legend

Victor Gollancz

Richard Matheson
1954

“Full circle. A new terror born in death, a new superstition entering the unassailable fortress of forever. I am legend.”

It always kind of irks me a little when people refer to the details of a story after only seeing the cinematic adaptation, like the other day when my sister asked me if I'd heard of the film War of the Worlds and I almost through her out of the window. The thing is that it's one of those irritations which is just actually a personal affectation to make myself look and feel like more of a literary snob, and in reality we're all the same and we all do it. I first saw the Will Smith sci-fi horror vehicle I Am Legend a few years ago, and although it's not a particularly brilliant film it did stick in my memory. In the years since, as I grow old and wizened, I learned a little more about fan disapproval of the film, specifically due to it's dovetailing from the original story. Curious to see what the fuss was about, I picked up the book.

Richard Matheson's bibliography is totally alien to me aside from this book, which stands out as the definitive note of his writing career as an individual piece of sci-fi/horror in the same way that The Day of the Triffids was for John Wyndham, or Flowers for Algernon for Daniel Keyes (two of my favourite science fiction novels). Prior to reading it I really had no idea of the influence it had on modern things I enjoy, which is probably my brain subliminally filling it alongside the 2007 film version as merely throw-away entertainment. The modern things I enjoy, by the way, are zombies.

Starring Will Smith.

I Am Legend is a short book, more of a novella, and certainly isn't in the same vein as the action-packed Hollywood version. Instead Matheson uses the elements he chooses to pluck from the horror genre to give an intense character study of a man in the strangest of circumstances, using the structure of events to move him to a climactic realisation that puts the whole book, including its title, into a final philosophical context. In this aspect Matheson's pacing and development is masterful; he introduces the reader to the life of Robert Neville, possibly the last human being left alive and unaffected by the vampiric plague that's swept the world- yes, I did say zombies but they're kind of like a cross between vampires and zombies.

 It's a lonely, harrowing story. Neville's day to day survival is somewhat procedural; he's very well-prepared, intelligent, and safe, having isolated himself in an impenetrable home at night while free to wonder the world during the day. Naturally events don't remain so simple and under control, and it's at the introduction of third parties that the differences between the book and the film really stand out, literally, symbolically and very much thematically. Like every other film starring Will Smith ever, the focus there is on hope and success, but that was a large departure from the original source. I can certainly understand devout fans of the book not enjoying the changes at all, but then a direct adaptation would not have worked, at least not for mainstream audiences.

Ultimately I think it's a fact that I Am Legend is a far greater novel than it was a film. I think the quality of its inspiration on the post-apocalyptic strand of the horror novel cannot be understated, although the quality of the novel and its prose itself doesn't quite match up to that legacy. I certainly recommend it to any fan of horror as both an genre innovator and a good, brief read on its own merits.

E.T.A. Hoffman- The Devil's Elixirs

The Devil's Elixirs

Oneworld Classics

 E.T.A. Hoffmann
1815

If you're like me and you've got the consistent habit of collecting books at a much faster rate than you read them, then you'll come across the dilemma of having to choose a next read between something you really, really want to look at next or something you've had for much longer and can't build up the will-power to start. It's kind of silly, really, there's a bunch of Murakami and Bukowski novels that I just know I'll devour, but I have this vague notion I need to mix it up a little bit. So, to be honest, the prospect of E.T.A. Hoffmann's Gothic horror The Devil's Elixirs didn't appeal much in terms of picking a fun read, which begs the question of why I bought it in the first place.

I first experienced an educated look at the genres of romanticism and horror with the genre's most famous example; Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, and quickly became more familiar with the development of the genre and web-like connections between authors. While we all recognise Frankenstein now as perhaps the definitive supernatural monster story (originally told, as the story roughly goes, around a prototypical campfire) there's a lot more depth in tone and context to it, representing the culmination of,a style and set of ethics influenced by such luminaries as William Blake, Lord Byron and William Wordsworth.

The Devil's Elixirs was written three years before Frankenstein, and I feel its influence was felt stylistically in Mary Shelley's piece. In regards to the story, however, it seemed to have more in common with the legend of Faustus, as it regards the corruption and descent into madness of a man given too much power. While it was Christopher Marlowe who was the first to write a definite version of the myth in Doctor Faustus, Hoffman's contemporary Johann Goethe's Faust was published in 1808, and surely must have influenced Hoffman's storytelling. I'm yet to read Faust but I do have a copy on the pile.

The Devil's Elixirs tells the harrowing tale of Medardus the Monk, a good, pious man who's fate is settled when he is entrusted with the possession of the titular devil's elixir, a corrupting liquid supposedly secreted by Satan. Naturally Medardus is unable to resist the bizarre mental effects he soon experiences, and the story really begins as he flees the monastery and attempts to create a new identity. It's a fairly detailed plot that focuses on identity and mystery, evoking to me in style (though through translation) the Victorian prose of Dickens and the like. Forgive the lack of a better description, but it screams classical to me.

As such, I found it difficult to engage my full attention to the narrative throughout because I find such a style dry in places. Ultimately I found it to be what I expected, which might be a self-fulfilling prophecy, which was a notable and memorable read that I can't say I particularly enjoyed. As someone still clinging on to the description of English student, I'm always keen to read something that fits as a piece of a large puzzle depicting a genre or a period that I'm interested in. The blurred lines of horror and romanticism are fascinating and alluring through their image and impact on culture through history, through Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto to perhaps the final Gothic classic Dracula, and The Devil's Elixirs is certainly an essential read for anyone wanting to fully explore macabre fiction.