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sciencefair200 's review for:
The Castle of Otranto
by Horace Walpole
So.... this was a tough one.
On the one hand, you really can't judge this book by modern standards. A lot of the things that are 'bad' about it - a lot of the things that feel like tired tropes and ridiculous non sequiturs- are things that weren't anywhere near as done to death as they were at the time. A lot of the stuff that seems silly- the constant stream of Things That Are Now Double Entendres, the overwrought dialogue, the unironic use of Saint Nicholas as a religious figure and not as Santa Claus- is perfectly fine by the standards of the mid-1700s.
...On the other hand, by modern standards, it makes the book absolutely hilarious. I cannot take this seriously as a work of horror; it feels like the cast of a telanovela fell into a Scooby-Doo episode and it just gets more and more ridiculous as it goes on.
Which is a problem, because the ending is a hell of a downer. If you've been reading it as a gloriously silly self-parodic romp, where even the creepy rape-y villain is too over the top to be taken seriously... yeah, it can almost seem out of place.
I'd still recommend reading it, but only because it's SO DARN INFLUENTIAL.
On the one hand, you really can't judge this book by modern standards. A lot of the things that are 'bad' about it - a lot of the things that feel like tired tropes and ridiculous non sequiturs- are things that weren't anywhere near as done to death as they were at the time. A lot of the stuff that seems silly- the constant stream of Things That Are Now Double Entendres, the overwrought dialogue, the unironic use of Saint Nicholas as a religious figure and not as Santa Claus- is perfectly fine by the standards of the mid-1700s.
...On the other hand, by modern standards, it makes the book absolutely hilarious. I cannot take this seriously as a work of horror; it feels like the cast of a telanovela fell into a Scooby-Doo episode and it just gets more and more ridiculous as it goes on.
Which is a problem, because the ending is a hell of a downer. If you've been reading it as a gloriously silly self-parodic romp, where even the creepy rape-y villain is too over the top to be taken seriously... yeah, it can almost seem out of place.
I'd still recommend reading it, but only because it's SO DARN INFLUENTIAL.