Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
An absolute must-read for any lover of gothic literature.
I enjoyed this quite a bit - each story has a unique structure and angle to it, the atmosphere is excellent, and there are some surprisingly ahead of its time (or at least atypical to my understanding of the victorian era) twists and ideas - a fun read.
I continue to really dig on Le Fanu. This is one of those story collections where you start trying to count the levels of storytelling and eventually give up.
--The nephew tells the story of the papers that
--The occult medical doctor writes up as his cases, but mostly he just writes in introductory paragraph that notes the provenance of the text, which comes from
--A person with experience of the case who is writing from a perspective years later, and includes in their memoirs
--A story they heard from another character in the narrative, who is only repeating
--A tale they heard from yet another character, who also
--Heard rumors from the locals.
Includes Camilla.
--The nephew tells the story of the papers that
--The occult medical doctor writes up as his cases, but mostly he just writes in introductory paragraph that notes the provenance of the text, which comes from
--A person with experience of the case who is writing from a perspective years later, and includes in their memoirs
--A story they heard from another character in the narrative, who is only repeating
--A tale they heard from yet another character, who also
--Heard rumors from the locals.
Includes Camilla.
3.4 star average over all the stories, but without a doubt needs to be rounded up to 4 stars.
Le Fanu is a master of psychological horror, supernatural, and legitimately suspenseful terrifying reads. Although he can be very overly-wordy for no real reason, it's worth the focus to read these stories.
Green Tea: 3 stars. Legitimately disturbing and extremely accurate in regards to how anxiety and paranoia was portrayed.
The Familiar: 3 stars. Fairly similar to Green Tea, but a little more forgettable.
Mr. Justice Harbottle: 2.5 stars. Boring as all get out (and again, awfully similar to the previous two stories), but I love me some surreal British courtroom hallucinations.
The Room in the Dragon Volant: 5 STARS. ALL THE STARS. I LOVE THIS STORY. JUST... ALL THE STARS.
Carmilla: 3.5 stars. Sort of slow in parts, but much better than Dracula in its portrayal of vampires and much more original.
Le Fanu is a master of psychological horror, supernatural, and legitimately suspenseful terrifying reads. Although he can be very overly-wordy for no real reason, it's worth the focus to read these stories.
Green Tea: 3 stars. Legitimately disturbing and extremely accurate in regards to how anxiety and paranoia was portrayed.
The Familiar: 3 stars. Fairly similar to Green Tea, but a little more forgettable.
Mr. Justice Harbottle: 2.5 stars. Boring as all get out (and again, awfully similar to the previous two stories), but I love me some surreal British courtroom hallucinations.
The Room in the Dragon Volant: 5 STARS. ALL THE STARS. I LOVE THIS STORY. JUST... ALL THE STARS.
Carmilla: 3.5 stars. Sort of slow in parts, but much better than Dracula in its portrayal of vampires and much more original.
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
N/A
Loveable characters:
N/A
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
None of the stories are bad, but Carmilla is still the best
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Ah, 1800tallet. Mye mer underholdende enn jeg forventet, lesbiske vampyrer og demoner i apeform.
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
I mean...if you can hang with “classic” lit this one is intriguing. A whole bunch of hearing a story from someone telling a story to someone else that they heard from a whole other someone, which makes it feel overly complex. But generally speaking there is a lot of not knowing if a character is delusional or actually haunted. I’m sure for its time it was jostling.