Serious Series

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The Carnivorous Carnival continues to reveal more of the Baudelaires’ unanswered questions.  At the Caligari Carnival the orphans disguise themselves to fit into a freak show, and meet Madame Lulu, who reveals important information—the V.F.D. has split into two parties.  The children still don’t learn what the initials stand for, but they discover that some of the influential adults in their lives were part of it.  The story grows quite gripping and more seriously dark than I remembered it being when I read it to our daughter many years ago.  One of Count Olaf’s associates isn’t mentioned after The Hostile Hospital, where presumably they died.  In this volume, another of his associates is thrown to the lions that give the book its title.

I couldn’t help but think of Daniel in the lion’s den as I read this one.  And Olaf’s plan is only too eagerly lapped up by the crowd wanting to see violence (and sloppy eating).  The reference to Daniel here can’t be coincidence.  The story also has the children questioning their own motivations.  Are they villains too?  Madame Lulu was a good member of V.F.D. who’d turned bad.  The children helped her reform, but in the end she betrayed them to Count Olaf.  Were their motives really pure?  For the first time in a Series of Unfortunate Events, the orphans end up separated at the end.  Neither Mr. Poe nor the Quagmire Triplets appear in this part of the tale.  It does seem, as noted, darker than usual.

Daniel Handler continues his subtle talking over the heads of children, though.  When explaining “déjà vu” for children, he gives other examples such as “ennui” and “la petite mort.”  The latter he explains that it’s a feeling that part of you has died, but Handler certainly knows that the common usage for the phrase is a circumlocution for “orgasm.”  Something many adults know as well, I suspect.  And there is humor for younger readers as well.  The “freaks” with whom the orphans share their job at the carnival provide some comic relief.  As an adult reading the books for myself, I get the feeling that, by this far into the series the story—while remaining pure fantasy—is aimed more at older readers.  It’s amazing what you can forget over the course of a couple of decades.  I trusted Lemony Snicket all those years ago, not to write anything that would seriously disturb our child.  I still trust him as an adult as I look forward to book ten.

In Public

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I’ve written about the virtues of reading in public before.  Book reading, that is.  I was reminded once again how restorative an exercise it can be.  The occasion this time was a book sale at the Bethlehem Public Library.  We didn’t realize this was one of those bi-monthly kinds of events—at least this year there are six such sales.  We met some friends there and I exercised considerable restraint, buying only two books.  One was a copy of Strunk & White’s The Elements of Style.  I’d had a copy of this, but it was ruined in the flood.  I decided to replace it.  The other book was a collection of all Flannery O’Connor’s stories.  I’d been thinking just the day before that I should read some of her work.  It happened that I finished before other members of our party so I waited in the hall and started reading the story “Geranium,” with which the book starts.

After a few minutes a college-aged guy walked by and said, “Great book.”  I thanked him for affirming my choice.  He said, “I’ve just been reading O’Connor, you’re in for a real treat.”  This brief exchange reminded me of being in Easton on a warm evening a few years back, reading in a public square.  I was there to pick someone up and they weren’t quite ready yet.  A couple of young women, probably Lafayette College students, walked by and asked what I was reading.  It was Toni Morrison’s Beloved.  They weren’t familiar with it and asked me what it was about.

Now, I’ve always been quite a shy person.  I don’t mind responding when someone talks to me, but initiating a conversation is something I don’t do very well with strangers.  I’m happy to respond when someone shows an interest in a book I’m reading.  I’ve had dentist hygienists ask about the book I inevitably bring in with me, asking if it’s any good.  The few times when I forget to bring a book and I have to try to entertain myself on my phone (it’s not easy; I quickly grow bored), I’ve never had anybody stop and ask what was interesting on my phone.  It’s the printed book, at least in populations with college students, that seems to bring out a willingness to chat.  I wonder how much of that bookish sociability that we’ve lost now that the electronic revolution has taken place.  How many discussions does a Kindle start?  It’s a virtue to read an actual book in public.

Haunting the House

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Although it starts off a little slowly, the premise of The Haunting of Ashburn House keeps you reading.  I don’t mind taking the time for a story to unfold.  I know many people want action to draw them in, but I’ve been reading about quiet horror and since it often takes its time, I know to appreciate it.  I’ve not read Darcy Coates before, but as this tale unspooled itself it grew gripping.  Even before the action took off, the situation was intriguing enough to draw me in.  I do quite like a haunted house story.  So, Adrienne has inherited a big old house from a great aunt she only vaguely remembers meeting once as a child.  A writer a bit down on her luck, she’s glad to have a place to live, but she knows nothing of the recently deceased relative who lived there.

Ipson, the town outside of which Ashburn House sits, is peopled with citizens who remember, often incorrectly, the tragedy that took place in Ashburn decades ago.  An entire family, apart from a young daughter, had been slaughtered there.  The daughter, sent to a foster family, returned as an adult to care for the house.  It has many secrets.  The people have been kept away from the house during the aunt’s long life alone there.  Adrienne arrives with little money and no acquaintances, and no knowledge of the history of the house.  She soon discovers that it’s haunted.  Not one to believe in ghosts, it takes some time to convince herself that the occurrences are supernatural.  Once that’s confirmed in a very stark way, much of the rest of the novel unfolds over the course of another day and night.

I don’t remember where I learned of this novel, but I do recall it was on a list of gothic literature.  Indeed, it is gothic.  And it’s a horror story.  The monster—“ghost” is a bit mild—has to be explained, but it fits within the context.  These days to make horror stories work you need to isolate protagonists from phones or “signal.”  Putting Adrienne in a small town, in a house with no wifi, and even partially without electricity, serves this end quite well.  Making her more or less penniless raises a bit of anxiety—such things can happen far too easily in real life.  The story is nevertheless well told and once the monster attacks it becomes difficult to put down.  I don’t remember where I learned about The Haunting of Ashburn House, but I’m glad that I did.

Read Everything

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I’m aware that I don’t think like other people.  This can lead to a strange kind of loneliness at times.  It might also explain why my books never seem to grow wings.  One specific example prompts this post.  When I get interested in a topic, I read every book I can get ahold of on it.  I guess I always think other people are the same way.  Rationally, I realize that’s largely not true.  Many people will read a book, maybe two, and move on.  A certain kind of brain, however, insists that the information must be tested, and tested again.  I’ve written enough nonfiction books to know that each one is an opinion.  There are those who differ in their outlook.  Who would interpret the same evidence differently.  And unless there’s just one book on a topic (it happens!) I’m always inclined to read another.

That came in handy for writing A Reassessment of Asherah.  That was my dissertation, of course.  I read everything written on the old girl that I could lay my hands on.  (Since this was before the electronics revolution, it was a hands-on experience.)  Of course, a doctoral program is the rare chance to undertake that kind of research without having to work at some kind of menial job, or have class prep and grading to do.  Or working at a 9-2-5.  Now I have to be selective regarding how much I read on a topic.  Not having use of a university library, it often means things I can afford.  Reading may be fundamental, but it doesn’t come cheap.  And I see other books, with perhaps minimal cited sources, selling much better than mine.  Again, I don’t think like other people do.

There’s an invisible line at about $19 over which a book is relegated to rabid fans only.  One of my books was priced at $22 when it came out, and I had people at a speaking event apologize that it was just a bit too much to pay.  The going rate then was $16 for most books (it has crept up a couple dollars since then).  Six dollars can make a difference.  For academic publishers, of course, you need to add an extra hundred to make up for the lack of sales.  I wonder why?  In this respect I think like others who publish with academic presses.  We may realize our books aren’t bestsellers, but we know a few more people would buy them if they were priced down in the range of other books.  I guess other people think about books primarily as money-making products rather than the outpouring of an individual’s thoughts and energy.  Depends how you think about it.

Unlikely Heroes

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I discovered Vicious by V. E. Schwab on a list of dark academia novels.  I’m glad I did.  The dark academia comes in because the protagonist Victor and antagonist Eli meet in college.  Eli has already stolen Victor’s girlfriend, and he has a thesis idea that postulates EOs (Extra Ordinaries) gain their ability from near death experiences (NDEs).  Determined to prove this, he and Victor try to kill each other, with consent, so that they can be revived to see if they have special abilities.  They do.  Victor’s parents, self-help book writers, have no time for him while Eli is very religious.  They soon become enemies.  Victor’s ability is controlling pain, both his own and that of others.  Eli can heal nearly instantaneously from any injury.  Ten years later Victor is in jail and Eli has become religiously convinced that he has to kill EOs.  He finds a college woman who controls minds and together they get away with murder.

The book is quite well written.   I’ve read plenty of novels that were a plod to get through, but this one never lost my interest.  The tension builds to a pretty high level at some points.  And yes, there is blood.  I think dark academia is an appropriate classification here, and perhaps low fantasy.  There are horror elements, but the abilities of the EOs make it feel like a superhero movie.  Thoughts of The X-Men kept coming back.  In any case, Victor escapes from prison with his cellmate and goes on the hunt for Eli, who’s been systematically murdering EOs because they go against God’s laws.  They discover Sydney who has an ability on which the entire story turns.  With the page-turning power of a thriller, Vicious was a book I always looked forward to picking up again.

I’m not going to give any spoilers here—the novel is well worth reading.  I was intrigued by the way Schwab used the religion angle to motivate the killer.  Those who come back from death, the plot suggests, have something missing that was there before.  This, combined with his religion, gives Eli the motive for killing.  Of course, his morals were problematic to begin with.  Selfish and narcissistic, he ignores Victor’s needs from the beginning.  Even when being saved by the woman who controls minds, he’s never grateful.  Religious but completely oblivious to his own moral failings, he develops a God complex.  This adds a depth to what might otherwise be simply a speculative action story.  With, of course, dark academia stylings.

The Shaft

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For those following my musings on Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, I’m up to book six of the Baudelaire orphans’ adventures, The Ersatz Elevator.  There’s much to appeal to adults in these stories, as ridiculous as some parts are.  In this installment the Baudelaires are adopted by Esmé and Jerome Squalor, wealthy benefactors who live on Dark Avenue.  Mrs. Squalor, who’s very wealthy, follows whatever’s in at the moment, setting the theme for this part of the saga.  Of course, many “in” things are quite silly and they keep the situation light.  Although they live on the 66th floor (at 667), the Squalors have the elevators decommissioned because elevators aren’t in.  Count Olaf uses an abandoned elevator shaft to help work out his scheme to control the orphans, all the while trapping the Quagmire triplets.  The V.F.D. theme is further emphasized, but not yet explained.

The world-building of this series is impressive.  I remember reading through the first time and being increasingly drawn into the question of what V.F.D. could mean.  Although the 2004 movie picks up on Olaf’s arson activities, it doesn’t include this particular aspect.  The rest of the world Handler devised is also intriguing.  The time-frame is unclear.  The place, although it goes to outer-lying areas, centers on a city unnamed but which clearly has relevance for the overall plot.  People of this world are singularly clueless, including the orphans at times.  The world with its desultory, or even sinister, place names reflects that constant theme of misfortune that somehow isn’t depressing.  And an educational element, particularly in introducing children to new terms, phrases, and concepts, is generally present.

I learned the word “Ersatz” in German class.  A noun denoting “substitute,” it became an English adjective only in the last century.  Once the concept is defined in the way the children devise to climb down the elevator shaft, it’s used in reinforcing ways throughout the rest of the story.  Often in humorous contexts.  Also, the character of Lemony Snicket starts to grow more prominent as Beatrice is brought more explicitly into the plot.  The first mentions here are subtle, but her role takes on some shading as the series moves on.  This use of narrator as character had some influence on me as a writer.  While I’d written a not very good novel before beginning my doctorate, I started on my fiction again, on and off, during the period when I was reading these books to my child.  Coming back to them continues to inspire an adult who loves their gothic flavor, even if as ersatz adult literature.

Ghost Belief

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I haven’t read Plato since I was a college student.  It’s not that I don’t want to read more, but as with most things it comes down to a matter of time.  If I’m honest I’ll confess Plato wasn’t the reason I read Cathy Gutierrez’s Plato’s Ghost.  It was the second word.  And the subtitle: Spiritualism in the American Renaissance.  I’ve always been interested in Spiritualism.  In fact, Lily Dale is on my bucket-list of places to visit.  The idea that ghosts can inform our spirituality is an intriguing concept.  While Gutierrez’s book is an academic one, it contains many stimulating ideas and shows that the Spiritualists were perhaps the truest progressives of their era.  And they had their heyday during the Victorian Period.  I enjoyed learning more about their theology and social views.  And, of course, ghosts.

When academics venture into esoterica, some amazing things can result.  I occasionally discuss Jeff Kripal’s books—he’s on the forefront of this movement—and now and again the books of other academics who engage the unusual.  Ghosts have, of course, been noted and believed in since the earliest humans who wrote.  Probably before.  They are still reported and chasing them has become a business model by which one might make a living.  A religion foregrounding the departed, however, is fascinating.  As Gutierrez demonstrates, Spiritualists were very forward-looking while keeping an eye firmly on the past.  While reading her book I kept stumbling upon astonishing observations that made me stop and wonder.  Spiritualists supported abolition, feminism, fair treatment for all, and, at least some of them, free love.  Numerous historical asides also brought me to a halt.  The idea, for example, that patients with multiple personality disorders might benefit from putting a non-dominant personality in charge.  There are Easter eggs like that throughout the book.

While Plato’s Ghost is academic, and there are parts that require some careful reading, it is the kind of book that laity interested in Spiritualism could benefit from picking up.  There are sections that enlightened me, and I’ve been studying religion for many decades now.  In general I’ve been steering away from reading academic tomes in my time off.  When I go to do my own writing it tends to veer back toward getting published only in academic presses, which I’m also trying to avoid.  I’ll make exceptions for books like this one, however.  I was drawn in by the promise of ghosts, and while they weren’t exactly what I was expecting, they were a rich feast nevertheless.

Lovecraftian Layers

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Lovecraftian dreams dominate Hugo Yelagin’s Deadlights.  A few major themes are addressed in this debut novel.  One, which always stands out to me for some reason, is the search for the father.  Maxwell Corvid, a former medical student at Miskatonic University, is returning home to his father’s once grand estate.  Accompanied by a banker who delights in pointing out that his father’s debts, Maxwell learns he’ll inherit debt rather than anything substantial.  Accosted by a brigand, the two leap into a huge sinkhole that has taken the estate.  Maxwell finds himself among moldy people transforming into fish (Lovecraftian, as I say), but befriends a young girl who knows her way around.  They find the banker and brigand and begin trying to solve the strangeness they encounter in this world.  A couple other major characters enter the tale, but I don’t want to give any spoilers.

While novels that heavily feature dreams aren’t my personal favorites, this dark fantasy intrigues you into turning pages.  I really couldn’t guess the ending, and, like a dream, not everything wraps up neatly.  The amazing thing about H. P. Lovecraft is that his vision has inspired so many others to grapple with his worlds.  Many modern writers find the call of Cthulhu irresistible.  The sloshy, watery fear of being transformed into something you’re currently not.  This, I think, is a second theme.  Transformation.  Realizing maybe the way you see someone isn’t the whole of that person.  And, of course, the theme of light.  This sinkhole world is dark and occasional lights help the characters to see.  And they learn that those different from themselves aren’t necessarily evil.  (Although one or two might be.)

I’m not sure I’d consider this a horror novel, although there are monstrous sorts in it.  It doesn’t try to scare like many horror novels do.  It does have a gothic setting, but the timeframe isn’t specified.  Lovecraft tends to conjure the Victorian period in my imagination, but his stories probably reflect his own time, as opposed to an earlier one.  I acknowledge my own weaknesses as a reader, and as someone with historical training, knowing “when” gives me a useful framework within which to paint a story in my head.  But then again, in worlds dominated by dreams that may be a moot point.  It’s just that, in my own canvas of this story, I do wonder what was, in this Lovecraftian world, really real.

Many Thanks

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My thanks go out to James Annitto and Victoria Jaye for a delightful discussion about demons on last night’s Nine Gates Podcast.  I will put a link to it on Spotify on the Other Social Media & Interviews page on this website.  I have to admit that I was a little nervous about it.  I wrote Nightmares with the Bible in 2019 and ’20, mostly.  Since then, in addition to the 9-2-5 that never ends, I wrote The Wicker Man and Sleepy Hollow as American Myth.  I have a good deal of another nonfiction book written, but I’ve been polishing what I hope might be my second published novel lately.  In other words, would I have forgotten about demons?  The amazing thing about being a podcast guest is that it suddenly brings back the past.  It’s like a time machine.

On my Other Social Media & Interviews page I have links to the various podcasts to which my books have garnered invitations over the past few years.  Last December Biblical Time Machine had me on to talk about Asherah.  Amazingly, although I wrote that book over three decades ago, I remembered quite a lot.  Some details were fuzzy around the edges, of course, but writing a book seems to seal certain facts in your gray cells.  The Incarcerated Christian podcast had me on for three episodes, two for Holy Horror and one for Nightmares.  My gratitude always goes out to TheoFantastique for chats about all of my books since Holy Horror on.  It’s devilishly hard to get attention as an ex-professor.  Being an editor is a quiet job.  So I’m full of gratitude for all of those who’re willing to listen to me prattle on for an hour.

I realize, by the way, that some readers find these posts on Facebook, Goodreads, and other social media.  There’s actually more to my website than my daily posts.  (They are the largest part, no doubt.)  I have individual pages on each of my books.  There’s a bit of contextualizing biographical information on this old ex-professor.  And there are links to my attempted vlogs on YouTube.  Chatting with James and Victoria last night, I was reminded again how much I’d like to get back into doing videos.  The only thing stopping me is time.  Even a 20-minute video can take an entire weekend to put together.  Thankfully there are a few folks out there who find my efforts worth an evening’s (or weekend afternoon’s) discussion.  I am profoundly grateful to this who do, if you’ll pardon my brief stint of self-indulgence.

Nightmare Talk

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For those inclined to podcasts, and who plan in advance, I wanted to pass along the information on this poster.  James Annitto and Victoria Jaye have kindly invited me to be a guest on their Nine Gates Podcast.  The topic will be Demons in Media.  This is a subject that has interested me for some time since it seems that our current ideas of what demons are owe a huge debt of gratitude to The Exorcist.  Yes, exorcism did exist long before the novel and blockbuster film.  And yes, many of the reported behaviors portrayed therein had been proclaimed by witnesses to said exorcisms—this is what gave William Peter Blatty the idea in the first place.  What had also happened, however, is that public interest in the topic had waned to the point that the novel and movie were so shocking as to jolt the interest back to life.

After The Exorcist, we had a new old monster to add to the horror lexicon.  The Exorcist-styled demon.  It has only grown from there.  A ritual that the Roman Catholic Church had mostly buried became frequently requested.  Protestants, never willing to let Catholics get the upper hand for long, joined in with their own methods of expelling demons.  Popularizers such as Malachi Martin and Ed and Lorraine Warren joined in, asserting demons were not all that uncommon after all.  Those who distrust science now had a new potential source to cure ailments that may have, ironically, been spawned by movies that convinced people that demons did exist.  I dealt with this in my book Nightmares with the Bible.  

I’ve occasionally been invited to various podcasts (a list is here) and I always enjoy it.  It reminds me of being back in the classroom, where I belong.  I realize blogs are outdated, but writing is what I do.  Also, putting together a single podcast can eat up a weekend while a blog post claims much less time.  I like to think I pay back the publicity of my kind hosts by advertising books here.  I have no idea if such notice ever leads anyone to add to any author’s coffers, but I can hope.  Living by the word has never been an easy prospect.  Certainly book royalties (in my experience) don’t come near reimbursing the expenses.  I suppose they’re more legacy building than anything else.  My “Kilroy was here” spray painted on the internet.  In any case, if you’re interested, on a forthcoming Tuesday night, look for me on the Nine Gates Podcast.

Lemony Reptiles

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Having embarked on A Series of Unfortunate Events again, and having just finished The Reptile Room again, I might reflect on Lemony Snicket’s contribution to dark academia.  I mentioned to a friend recently that some dark academia aficionados consider the series to fall into that genre.  Having had the books read to her at a young age, she asked “Why?”  That got me thinking again about this wide, wonderful, amorphous category of books.  In my personal calculus, dark academia involves education—and this may be book learning undertaken independently—something going seriously wrong, and, in the best of it, a gothic atmosphere.  While A Series of Unfortunate Events is generally quite funny and fun to read, it clearly has the main elements I seek in classifying dark academia.  The Baudelaire orphans are pursued relentlessly by Count Olaf in a setting which, although difficult to place time wise, has Victorian aesthetics.

Of course, The Reptile Room is the second book utilized by the movie A Series of Unfortunate Events to get it up to feature length.  Reading it again revealed just how distorted my memory of the story had become by the movie.  The resolution of the scam by Stephano in the film is merely a distraction by the children to come to the real reveal in the book.  I’m not one to diss the movie.  It is quite gothic and it has many quotable moments, but it isn’t the same as the books.  I still remember when we first learned about these books from a niece, very young at the time, who enthused about them.  We were just a little cautious about reading scary stories to our daughter because one Roald Dahl book we read really was too gruesome for a child of tender years.  We immediately loved this series, however.

A quarter century or so is plenty of time to forget details.  Rereading these books also reminds me how influential they were on some of my own writing, although I read them as what passes for an adult at the time.  (I was old enough to be, and indeed was, a father.)  It occurs to me, as it likely did back then, just how clueless adults are.  Some of the descriptions of Count Olaf in this book could easily be substituted for a particular denizen of the Oval Office these days.  And, I suspect, children are able to see through those who constantly make up excuses to cover their own incompetence.  I’m looking forward to The Wide Window.

Life Underground

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Having really enjoyed Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, I was looking forward to The Starless Sea, despite its nearly 600 pages.  I don’t mind getting lost in a book; in fact it’s one of life’s true and simple joys.  The Starless Sea came to my attention as a dark academia book.  The story is a good one, but in my uninformed opinion, a bit too long.  The fault is my own, I’m sure.  My sensitivity to high fantasy has reached a point where swords tend to put me off.  And some bits, particularly in book V were a bit confusing.  Still, Morgenstern’s writing is beautiful, and at some points sublime.  If it’d been a bit shorter I’d probably be gushing.  Instead I’m reflectively admiring.  As a sometime writer myself, I know that you write what you write and others may not get it.  That’s life.

The story generally follows grad student Zachary Ezra Rawlins as he finds a book from a library of a world that’s beneath the ground.  A world that includes a harbor on the Starless Sea.  That world is inhabited by the surviving members of a decaying society made up of stories.  Most members of this world (and it’s difficult not to see this as an allegory) have left for the world above (this world).  Access between the two worlds is through doors.  Sometimes real doors, other times doors painted on a wall.  Zachary finally goes through one, having not tried one outside his house when he was just a boy.  He’s not sure if he wants to stay in the Starless Sea world or not, but he gets roped into the story.

Many other characters, at varying levels of the story within a story get involved, of course.  He meets his true love, and one of the undergrads he taught gets interested in his fate, and the denizens of the world below are intriguing characters in their own right.  Despite the length of the book, there are still plenty of gaps left for the readers to fill in for themselves.  Again, my own limitations prefer to have not too many gaps because I get confused.  The story tips a hat to several of its influences explicitly, and in many ways reminded me of Susanna Clarke’s Piranesi.  With its grad school protagonist, lots of libraries, and even a secret society, this fantasy is a card-carrying dark academia novel.  The genre encompasses may differing books and styles.  And I’m glad to have read this one as part of my own quest in that genre.  It was a sustained escape from life in the upper world.

Bad Start

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I’m not too proud to admit to reading books for young readers.  On a recent family night we watched the 2004 film, A Series of Unfortunate Events (not for the first time), and I realized that my memory of the books by Lemony Snicket was hazy.  Since we bought and read all the books for my daughter, I pulled The Bad Beginning from the shelf and read it in a couple of hours.  Although it was published over a quarter century ago, it is still fresh and it stands as one of those books (and series) that defied convention and presented stories that were potentially disturbing for children.  I have to admit that another of my motivations in re-reading this was the suggestion that perhaps on another family night we might start watching the Netflix adaptation, which, as I understand it, is better than the theatrical movie.

The movie, of course faced a dilemma.  There are thirteen books in the series—too many to comfortably fit into one film.  Each individual book, however, is too slim to fill out a feature-length presentation.  The decision was made to blend the first three books together, beginning and ending the show with the events from The Bad Beginning.  If you’re not familiar with the series, even if you don’t have children, the books are an entertaining read.  Snicket, who was later revealed to be Daniel Handler, is quite a clever author and there were a couple of points that had me, well, snickering out loud.  In any case, I’m given to understand that the Netflix series tackles this conundrum of too much/little material by being, ahem, a series.

A brief summary of The Bad Beginning may help if you’re still undecided about reading it as an adult.  The three Baudelaire children, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny, are orphaned in a fire.  Adopted by their scheming uncle, Count Olaf, they are immediately put in peril as he tries various ways to get at their parents’ fortune.  Since Olaf is a thespian, he devises a plot to hold a wedding between himself and fourteen-year-old Violet in disguise as a play.  The plot is foiled, of course, by the children.  The book ends by letting the reader know that the orphans are still in danger because Olaf has escaped and remains at large.  That would take quite a lot of padding to get a feature-length film out of it.  It works quite well as a brief book for young readers.  I was impressed at both the set-up and execution when I first read this many years ago.  And I liked it again the second time through.

Scary Scripture

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The question’s not as simple as whether chocolate and peanut butter go together.  What is it with horror and the Bible?  A number of us have explored that question in book form, but probably the most prolific is Brandon R. Grafius.  His Scared by the Bible is a mapping through terrain that will feel foreign to some: if you live for the beach in summer, why would you fly to Antarctica to visit the South Pole instead?  Part of the reason is clearly that the Bible isn’t the rainbow-and-unicorn book that it’s often made out to be.  Some parts—not a few—are pretty scary.  That’s Grafius’ entry point into how horror and the Bible are surprisingly compatible.  Interestingly, we had similar starts down this path.  A Bible given to us by a grandmother when we were a child, and the determination to read it.  My world was a bit more hellfire and brimstone than Grafius’ but we’ve ended up near the same place.

Often I thought, as I was reading it, “Are people going to get both these references?” (i.e., both the biblical story and the horror movie being cited).  After all, many Christian denominations still teach that horror is not helpful at best, and satanic at worst.  I just wonder how many of us there are who never found watching horror a spiritual problem.  I grew up thinking about death a lot.  Part of this was because Evangelical children’s literature raised the question of where would you spend eternity if you died today.  Seriously, some of the stories I read, along with Dick and Jane, still scare me today.  Religion often uses fear for its own purposes.  So does the Bible.  Grafius comes down to this at the end, asking if it’s intentional on the Bible’s part.

It seems to me that this is an important question to explore.  Religion has been weaponized through fear since at least the Reagan years.  More recently it has been aimed specifically at us “evil” liberals and our “culture of death” even as conservatives rain bombs on Iran.  We desperately need to understand religion’s now very intentional use of fear to retain power.  People are afraid.  They have reason to be.  Generally it’s not the emotional issues politicians hand-pick to garner votes.  Yes, the Bible is a source of fear.  Horror films are often also a source of scary thoughts.  They do have a lot in common.  We just need someone to come along with an open jar of peanut butter to run into someone eating a chocolate bar.

Re-Telling Poe

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Retelling stories is a very old tradition.  Fiction writers often do it.  Some even argue there are no new stories (I tend to disagree with that).  In any case, T. Kingfisher decided to try retelling my favorite short story, Edgar Allan Poe’s, “The Fall of the House of Usher.”  What Moves the Dead has Roderick and Madeline Usher and their creepy house but the story revolves around the narrator, Easton.  (There’s a helpful author’s note at the end that discusses this.)  As Kingfisher notes, the narrative warps around fully-formed new characters and the question is whether that works or not.  Anyone who’s spent much time on this blog will know that I’m a diehard Poe fan.  It takes a lot to convince me that anyone has done him justice.  What Moves the Dead is a quick read, but perhaps unsurprisingly I had trouble accepting Easton as the interloper to the story.  

One of the most compelling aspects of Poe’s tale is the point of view of his unnamed narrator.  He expresses his horror at what happens but manages to keep himself out of the spotlight.  Easton intrudes a bit too much in the narrative.  And other characters also tend to overshadow the Ushers.  The main thing that is missing, however, is Poe’s unity of effect.  There is a dread running throughout Poe’s “Usher,” and analysts have suggested that every detail of the story is relevant.  There’s a reason it’s my favorite short story—it is just so good!  So good that the few times I’ve ridden on a horse in my life, the first thought that always comes to mind is the opening of Poe’s story.

If you’re looking for a quick horror book to read, which has a bit of humor to it, What Moves the Dead isn’t bad.  Kingfisher is a talented writer and her characters are creative.  It’s just that they muddy the waters, as it were, of Poe’s masterpiece.  Ironically, I think the story would’ve been much more compelling without the Poe tie-in.  The idea of infecting mushrooms (she also discusses this in the author’s note) can be a really compelling tactic.  In fact, it is used quite a lot in horror these days (and I completely understand Kingfisher picking up another book that does what you’re trying to do when you’re in the middle of a project—that has happened to me more than once).  For me, Poe’s story is pretty much perfect and it’s difficult to improve on perfection.