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A review by yak_attak
Black Magic: The Rise and Fall of the Antichrist and Other Works by Marjorie Bowen (Halcyon Classics) by Marjorie Bowen
4.5
There's a level to which a modern audience will ascribe a certain reading of sexuality, of gender, of love to older works - a reading more romantic than the author intended. Sam and Frodo are gay as hell, etc. This isn't to say it's bad to think this way, but that we should at least be aware of the context that was relevant at the time, that the author's language may have been changed over the years and turned into something else it was never meant to be.
All this to say that Black Magic by Marjorie Bowen is gay as absolute hell, and about as transgressive as you could imagine a book from 1909 being. This story is less horror than it is arch gothic, a story of genderqueer romance stifled by societal norms, and the horrible lengths someone might go to make their love real. There are some very good reasons why this reading is pretty bad, particularly why one character is likely more problematic than they are trans, but let's just set that aside and revel instead in this emotional turmoil.
Our protagonists are deep in thrall to the powers of Satan, and their dark magics stain the pages. The writing is a little clunky: the language more simple than this story deserves or wants, but also the prose more meandering than ideal. Yet when you set aside the initial discomfort and fall into its meter, the atmosphere and feeling of grand primal darkness of the coming evening... the magic is perfectly realized, just beautiful enough to be attractive, but always clearly evil.
So - atmospheric, emotional, gothic, beautiful.... again, slightly clunky writing, the requisite orientalism of its day, and the will-they-won't-they attitude of the two main characters is formulaic and repetitive (I mean, one of them is specifically angry about it, so it does kinda work.), but these are pretty minor quibbles for a very compelling work. There's a level to which we as modern readers also underestimate the past and like to call things "modern for its time", but this book is precisely that - shockingly modern.
All this to say that Black Magic by Marjorie Bowen is gay as absolute hell, and about as transgressive as you could imagine a book from 1909 being. This story is less horror than it is arch gothic, a story of genderqueer romance stifled by societal norms, and the horrible lengths someone might go to make their love real. There are some very good reasons why this reading is pretty bad, particularly why one character is likely more problematic than they are trans, but let's just set that aside and revel instead in this emotional turmoil.
Our protagonists are deep in thrall to the powers of Satan, and their dark magics stain the pages. The writing is a little clunky: the language more simple than this story deserves or wants, but also the prose more meandering than ideal. Yet when you set aside the initial discomfort and fall into its meter, the atmosphere and feeling of grand primal darkness of the coming evening... the magic is perfectly realized, just beautiful enough to be attractive, but always clearly evil.
So - atmospheric, emotional, gothic, beautiful.... again, slightly clunky writing, the requisite orientalism of its day, and the will-they-won't-they attitude of the two main characters is formulaic and repetitive (I mean, one of them is specifically angry about it, so it does kinda work.), but these are pretty minor quibbles for a very compelling work. There's a level to which we as modern readers also underestimate the past and like to call things "modern for its time", but this book is precisely that - shockingly modern.