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A review by vathek
The Castle of Otranto, Vathek & Nightmare Abbey by David Stuart Davies
4.0
Not the easiest read in places, but the age of the pieces means it's to be expected, Otranto is arguably the hardest as despite being penned in 1764 it was intentionally written in terms to make it look even older, far from impenetrable.
You can see why Castle of Otranto got it's reputation as the first gothic romance. All the elements are there. Ghosts, star crossed lovers, love triangles, tyrincal patriarch, characters of secret stock.
Plus it proves a good primer for other book in the genre. If you hear a writer describe a character as a "Manfred" this is what they're talking about!
Vathek really does run with the Arabian Nights comparison very successfully, however the ending is a bit lacking for my taste. Happy ending for a character of little concern. The titular character comes to a chronically unsurprising end...
For me though Vathek isn't the star of the show... look to his mother. As they say Macbeth would really be called "Lady Macbeth", Vathek should be called "Carathis"!
Nightmare Abby is the lighter fair but fun and quotable, it IS laid out as a play script though with characters named preceding near every spoken phrase. Easier to read for some harder for others, odd bits of Latin, French and Greek at points may need to be either looked up or glossed over, slowing the pace.
You can definitely see the references to the real people the work satairised and if you hang out in certain circles you'll probably recognise a few characters! For all his faults I found Scythrop an immensely sympathetic character.
"Let us all be miserable together."
You can see why Castle of Otranto got it's reputation as the first gothic romance. All the elements are there. Ghosts, star crossed lovers, love triangles, tyrincal patriarch, characters of secret stock.
Plus it proves a good primer for other book in the genre. If you hear a writer describe a character as a "Manfred" this is what they're talking about!
Vathek really does run with the Arabian Nights comparison very successfully, however the ending is a bit lacking for my taste. Happy ending for a character of little concern. The titular character comes to a chronically unsurprising end...
For me though Vathek isn't the star of the show... look to his mother. As they say Macbeth would really be called "Lady Macbeth", Vathek should be called "Carathis"!
Nightmare Abby is the lighter fair but fun and quotable, it IS laid out as a play script though with characters named preceding near every spoken phrase. Easier to read for some harder for others, odd bits of Latin, French and Greek at points may need to be either looked up or glossed over, slowing the pace.
You can definitely see the references to the real people the work satairised and if you hang out in certain circles you'll probably recognise a few characters! For all his faults I found Scythrop an immensely sympathetic character.
"Let us all be miserable together."