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A review by lanternsjourney
The Werewolf of Paris by Guy Endore
3.0
I am glad I started my werewolf journey with this book. Goodreads states that this book strives to do for werewolves what Dracula did for vampires, however, this book is much different. It is part historical fiction and part horror story and the horror is much more violent than in Dracula. I love the descriptions and the fact that we get to see all that led up to a baby being born with lycanthropy.
The story is written third hand as a story within a story, similar to Frankenstein. At times I thought this made the story overly complicated. Also, sometimes the pronoun "he" was used too often and it was hard to distinguish the points of view between Barral and Bertrand. There is even a point in the book where the author apologizes for confusing chronology as a fault of the writer Ayamar, whom he is interpreting the story from. The benefit to this writing style was that it kept the audience more removed from the werewolf so that interpretation as to whether the affliction was physical or mental in nature was left open to consideration.
I appreciated the historical fiction (Franco- Prussian war) part of the story because it gave great context to explain how a werewolf went unnoticed. One werewolf is inconsequential to all the people who are blood thirsty and killing each other on the streets. For me though, I felt these parts dragged a little because they were so detailed.
Overall, I recommend this book if you want to read the classics and are interested in monsters or historical fiction.
The story is written third hand as a story within a story, similar to Frankenstein. At times I thought this made the story overly complicated. Also, sometimes the pronoun "he" was used too often and it was hard to distinguish the points of view between Barral and Bertrand. There is even a point in the book where the author apologizes for confusing chronology as a fault of the writer Ayamar, whom he is interpreting the story from. The benefit to this writing style was that it kept the audience more removed from the werewolf so that interpretation as to whether the affliction was physical or mental in nature was left open to consideration.
I appreciated the historical fiction (Franco- Prussian war) part of the story because it gave great context to explain how a werewolf went unnoticed. One werewolf is inconsequential to all the people who are blood thirsty and killing each other on the streets. For me though, I felt these parts dragged a little because they were so detailed.
Overall, I recommend this book if you want to read the classics and are interested in monsters or historical fiction.