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msgtdameron 's review for:
The Beetle
by Richard Marsh
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I would really really really like to give this work a Five Star review and I would but for the last 10 pages. To start. Several years ago I read a collection of short Vampire stories from 1800 through 1849 and I had night mares or near nightmares for a couple of nights. The Beetle fits this category for the first three sections. Last night my mind was going about beetles climbing into my room and crawling on my body just as I drifted off to sleep. Then I finished the work. (SPOILER ALERT) The last section reads more as a Connan Doyal Holmesiaen mystery work. Then the last 10 pages and the suspense, the Holmesiaen mystery dropped away in a rather pedestrian ending. It really left my flummoxed. The ending should have had Marjorie, dressed in mens ragged clothes, injured and coming around in the third class carriage. Her persecuted, the Beetle, should have been coming too also and upon seeing Lanesseden, Arsheton, Chollen, and the Conductor in the fire light of the burning engine and the burning carriages should have tried to hold all four. He should have failed and then turned into the six foot beetle that several times in the first three parts of the work he does. The beetle should have then flown over the heads of the wreck and our hero's and that would have been a much more phantasmagorical ending and since the work has a lot of pages that are phantasmagorical the flying beetle. would have been much better.
There is also a paragraph in the epilogue about the explosion when a British Regiment gets close to the lair of the cult of Isis and her Beetle. The explosion leaves all the members of the cult dead. The only reason for this explosion, which could have been left out, was to show the British public that NO wog sect/cult was ever going to abduct, torture, and kill English women hood ever again. It is unnecessary and a wast of a paragraph. Like I said the last 10 pages are a real let down. The first 355 pages are great the last ten a real let down. Maybe Marshes editor told him to tone it down and that's why the flummoxed ending.
There is also a paragraph in the epilogue about the explosion when a British Regiment gets close to the lair of the cult of Isis and her Beetle. The explosion leaves all the members of the cult dead. The only reason for this explosion, which could have been left out, was to show the British public that NO wog sect/cult was ever going to abduct, torture, and kill English women hood ever again. It is unnecessary and a wast of a paragraph. Like I said the last 10 pages are a real let down. The first 355 pages are great the last ten a real let down. Maybe Marshes editor told him to tone it down and that's why the flummoxed ending.