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A review by richardr
Varney the Vampire; or, The Feast of Blood by James Malcolm Rymer
I think I bought the Kindle edition of this for about a pound a while back and then forgot about it. As I had a cold a few weeks ago, I decided that I needed to read something that required minimal neural activity and picked this. As I started to feel better I became mildly annoyed to realise that the Kindle edition has an error in its page count and I has therefore accidentally committed myself to reading 1,966 pages of 19th century penny dreadful, longer than War and Peace, Middlemarch or The Man Without Qualities. Essentially a extended abuse of the serialised novel format, the general experience of reading this is roughly analogous to being forced to wade through congealed treacle. The plot shuffles and lumbers about, frequently contradicting itself; Rymer probably had forgotten what he'd written 500 ages earlier. Repetition, hesitation and deviation are basically Rymer's authorial credo.
The results of this make for a book that is wildly inconsistent. The first and third volumes are the most obviously gothic throughout; the Italian scenes in the third are reminiscent of Walpole and Radcliffe while the English scenes are pretty comparable to Fanu and Stoker. The second volume regurgitates a Dickensian style plot where Varney intrigues to marry for money, only to be foiled repeatedy at the wedding. Characters like Admiral Bell are decidedly Dickensian as well, giving an overall effect similar to Lucy Westenra being replaced by Mrs Gamp and Dr Seward replaced by Pecksniff. I did rather warm to some of the Admiral Bell's catchphrases though; discovering 'I'll have none of your gammon' and 'Stop it with your gammoning' as slang phrases made a lot of the novel worthwhile. In fairness, it should also be said that there's an intriguingly Faustian aspect to Varney's character, who remains horrified by his crimes throughout. Human characters like Marchdale and the mob that destroys Varney's house are treated considerably less sympathetically.
The results of this make for a book that is wildly inconsistent. The first and third volumes are the most obviously gothic throughout; the Italian scenes in the third are reminiscent of Walpole and Radcliffe while the English scenes are pretty comparable to Fanu and Stoker. The second volume regurgitates a Dickensian style plot where Varney intrigues to marry for money, only to be foiled repeatedy at the wedding. Characters like Admiral Bell are decidedly Dickensian as well, giving an overall effect similar to Lucy Westenra being replaced by Mrs Gamp and Dr Seward replaced by Pecksniff. I did rather warm to some of the Admiral Bell's catchphrases though; discovering 'I'll have none of your gammon' and 'Stop it with your gammoning' as slang phrases made a lot of the novel worthwhile. In fairness, it should also be said that there's an intriguingly Faustian aspect to Varney's character, who remains horrified by his crimes throughout. Human characters like Marchdale and the mob that destroys Varney's house are treated considerably less sympathetically.