Scan barcode
lkedzie's reviews
309 reviews
Sick Houses: Haunted Homes and the Architecture of Dread by Leila Taylor
funny
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
Sick Houses is an examination of the haunted house, but is not limited to the horror sub-genre. The haunted house is a reference point for the examination of the uncanny in lived space, or the representations of lived space, such as with a dollhouse.
As is usual with a book like this, the quality of the chapters varies, but I found it stronger than most. The strongest is on formal architecture and haunting as a part of the city, specifically the designed city. The weakest is the one on the concept of the Witch's house, which has interesting reference points but has trouble relating to the core concept. In general, the chapter weaknesses are in the forest, not the trees, with the individual concepts studied with care and profundity the spine not working to connect them.
The book has the right amount of personality. It includes authorial commentary and lived experience, which accelerates the already readable into the unique. In reading this, I started to wonder about this in comparison to the times I have read an author doing something similar, but where I disliked it. I think that there are two distinctions, the lesser being that the author writes with humor, or the right balance of humor to seriousness. The important one is that it fits the material. The special quality of the haunted house is the invasion of the interior world. It is about violation, even if Aristotle-style the violation is unintended. And that invasion is into the the most ordinary: the domestic versus the extraordinary. The author's comments, stories, and narrative fulfill a similar duty. A text about hauntings that is itself haunted.
The complaint here is spoilers. I would make this blink Geocities-style if I could, so let me be plain: THIS BOOK IS FULL OF SPOILERS. SERIOUSLY, THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. DO NOT READ IF YOU WANT AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HAUNTED HOUSE GENRE. Or at least be prepared to skip a few paragraphs now and again.
This ought to be obvious. You cannot do work like this without including the facts of narrative. I did not complain about this for books doing the same with Jane Eyre or Moby Dick. However, the media here often relies on the twist or other surprise. So you are warned.
I would also mention how much is not covered that could be. I could list works that I wish were included, because I want to see how the author would apply her theories to them, but the scope of the project is such that this is okay. And while the reason why is discussed in the introduction, the book is restricted in terms of its discussions about race. The explanation is persuasive, but I also suspect that it will be a point of criticism.
Ridley Scott referred to his movie Alien as a haunted house movie in space, which never made sense to me. If anything it is a workplace drama, premised on the confines of the ship like a house, sure, but its look is unfamiliar to us and the matter at hand is much more invasive in character. And if that is the sort of thing that you like to think about, you will love this book.
My thanks to the author, Leila Taylor, for writing the book and to the publisher, Repeater Books, for making the ARC available to me.
As is usual with a book like this, the quality of the chapters varies, but I found it stronger than most. The strongest is on formal architecture and haunting as a part of the city, specifically the designed city. The weakest is the one on the concept of the Witch's house, which has interesting reference points but has trouble relating to the core concept. In general, the chapter weaknesses are in the forest, not the trees, with the individual concepts studied with care and profundity the spine not working to connect them.
The book has the right amount of personality. It includes authorial commentary and lived experience, which accelerates the already readable into the unique. In reading this, I started to wonder about this in comparison to the times I have read an author doing something similar, but where I disliked it. I think that there are two distinctions, the lesser being that the author writes with humor, or the right balance of humor to seriousness. The important one is that it fits the material. The special quality of the haunted house is the invasion of the interior world. It is about violation, even if Aristotle-style the violation is unintended. And that invasion is into the the most ordinary: the domestic versus the extraordinary. The author's comments, stories, and narrative fulfill a similar duty. A text about hauntings that is itself haunted.
The complaint here is spoilers. I would make this blink Geocities-style if I could, so let me be plain: THIS BOOK IS FULL OF SPOILERS. SERIOUSLY, THEY ARE EVERYWHERE. DO NOT READ IF YOU WANT AN INTRODUCTION TO THE HAUNTED HOUSE GENRE. Or at least be prepared to skip a few paragraphs now and again.
This ought to be obvious. You cannot do work like this without including the facts of narrative. I did not complain about this for books doing the same with Jane Eyre or Moby Dick. However, the media here often relies on the twist or other surprise. So you are warned.
I would also mention how much is not covered that could be. I could list works that I wish were included, because I want to see how the author would apply her theories to them, but the scope of the project is such that this is okay. And while the reason why is discussed in the introduction, the book is restricted in terms of its discussions about race. The explanation is persuasive, but I also suspect that it will be a point of criticism.
Ridley Scott referred to his movie Alien as a haunted house movie in space, which never made sense to me. If anything it is a workplace drama, premised on the confines of the ship like a house, sure, but its look is unfamiliar to us and the matter at hand is much more invasive in character. And if that is the sort of thing that you like to think about, you will love this book.
My thanks to the author, Leila Taylor, for writing the book and to the publisher, Repeater Books, for making the ARC available to me.
Metal from Heaven by August Clarke
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Hey, I know that you are off to play Thirsty Sword Lesbians with your Divinity School cohort, but could you give Grantham back their copy of Evangelion?
This Cursed House by Del Sandeen
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
2.75
In what is a dual first, I would like to complain about the magic system in this Gothic novel.
Our protagonist, a Black woman at the end of her tether in 60's Chicago, receives a mysterious job in New Orleans, where she discovers a crumbling house with many mysteries, including ones that relate to her past. Can she fix the curse? Can she fix all the curses?
The book has strong debut novel energy. There is an intricate beginning and a strong end, while the middle is a plotless muddle. The amount of not doing things the protagonist engages in is impressive. There is grade-A fridge logic to certain character choices. This is expected, and each would work on their own, but there are a lot of them.
The writing is stylistically spare, which feels intentional in terms of setting up the book as a sort of exercise in contrast to the gothic, commentary on the genre as much as a participant in it. I love this sort of approach, and the themes here about family, race, mental health, and the United States are as fine and as well-situated as they come. However, the narrative voice itself is hard to read. It gets judgy in a way that is tiresome and inapt. It makes feeling like or even pathos for the characters difficult. To be cruel, it feels like it was written to vie for space on a middle school reading list, just to avoid any worry that a reader might be left behind by something going on in the book.
The plot writ large is predictable, but the events are not, which is perfect for this genre. I think it takes a miss on some of the history as relates to the plot. I do give historical fiction generous leeway for history, because it is not the point, even when it is a sort of dual (or even triple) history like this one. Here, since it involves race and the U.S., we must also deal with the frustration of Lost Cause mythos poisoning the well of even well-intended writing. And I get that I am thinking a lot about it already in context because of the recent read of (view spoiler) but I experience struggle around some of the bigger elements to the setup.
It wears its analogies on its sleeve, but there is something just plain likable about the book that leaves me rounding up. Maybe it is the Chicago thing, but the author has a great understanding of her characters, and I felt invested in them despite the book telling me not to be and their actions being pretty unreasoned at times. And it is sufficiently scary, starting with more moody atmospherics then moving into louder scares. Good marks for a first novel; waiting to see what comes next.
Our protagonist, a Black woman at the end of her tether in 60's Chicago, receives a mysterious job in New Orleans, where she discovers a crumbling house with many mysteries, including ones that relate to her past. Can she fix the curse? Can she fix all the curses?
The book has strong debut novel energy. There is an intricate beginning and a strong end, while the middle is a plotless muddle. The amount of not doing things the protagonist engages in is impressive. There is grade-A fridge logic to certain character choices. This is expected, and each would work on their own, but there are a lot of them.
The writing is stylistically spare, which feels intentional in terms of setting up the book as a sort of exercise in contrast to the gothic, commentary on the genre as much as a participant in it. I love this sort of approach, and the themes here about family, race, mental health, and the United States are as fine and as well-situated as they come. However, the narrative voice itself is hard to read. It gets judgy in a way that is tiresome and inapt. It makes feeling like or even pathos for the characters difficult. To be cruel, it feels like it was written to vie for space on a middle school reading list, just to avoid any worry that a reader might be left behind by something going on in the book.
The plot writ large is predictable, but the events are not, which is perfect for this genre. I think it takes a miss on some of the history as relates to the plot. I do give historical fiction generous leeway for history, because it is not the point, even when it is a sort of dual (or even triple) history like this one. Here, since it involves race and the U.S., we must also deal with the frustration of Lost Cause mythos poisoning the well of even well-intended writing. And I get that I am thinking a lot about it already in context because of the recent read of (view spoiler) but I experience struggle around some of the bigger elements to the setup.
It wears its analogies on its sleeve, but there is something just plain likable about the book that leaves me rounding up. Maybe it is the Chicago thing, but the author has a great understanding of her characters, and I felt invested in them despite the book telling me not to be and their actions being pretty unreasoned at times. And it is sufficiently scary, starting with more moody atmospherics then moving into louder scares. Good marks for a first novel; waiting to see what comes next.
Buckley: The Life and the Revolution That Changed America by Sam Tanenhaus
challenging
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
4.0
This is a biography of the pundit William F. Buckley, Jr.. Buckley was a conservative political commentator, the epitome of pundit and total lexiconizing crush-object for anyone like me. The only thing that kept me from full blown fanboyism is my dysthemia and I am still trying to do his shtick. Starting with Buckley's first book, God and Man at Yale, the Ur-text of all books on campus controversies, he would start the National Review in his goal to create an insurgent political magazine and alternative to the more leftward high-class reporting. He would go on to host Firing Line, a political editorializing interview show that is so deeply in the genes of the modern media landscape as to be invisible, and wrote On the Right, a popular syndicated column. Buckley is the architect of the contemporary U.S. political Right, while also in so esteemed a position that he could operate as a critic of it.
Buckley has a legacy of being the adult in the room, the principled and erudite branch of the conservative party, particularly in contrast to the washed-up performers who make up the corpus of contemporary commentary. The biography dismantles all of that. It is a dry text, but it seems so out of necessity. If I understand correctly this project has been in the works for over a decade, and it shows with the sense of the need to impart volumes of information. This overrides any particular them about the subject of the biography, excluding that the author likes the Uno Reverse Card school where a virtue or vice must be followed in immediate succession by its opposite.
The author gets into Buckley's anti-Semitic and anti-Black background (via his family) and the way that the National Review and his writing projects were about pulling the Republican party further right in things like his adoration of McCarthy and hatred of Eisenhower, through to his surprising and somewhat covered up part in Watergate. Buckley's later career breaks with the consensus that put him more in the radical centrist school (much like David Brooks, whom he trained), and there is something of a running theme about how much he has changed his views as opposed to his methods. Buckley on race, and trying to discern what changed, if anything changed, is a topic for the future.
I cannot call a 1000 page book too short and still look myself in the mirror, but the closing part of Buckley's career gets a quick glance as compared to the rest, to the point that I feel it suspicious. It reads as pathos, the Cold Warrior trying to hold by moving into writing Tom Clancy fan fiction, but it also provides a thesis for his career: Buckley had shockingly crude comments about AIDS, that are then contrasted with his personal treatment of queer people and how same thought about him and his opinions as worthwhile. Like you want to be able to say that this was a person who was master at separating out the private and the political, who could perform at being a jerk while then being a square dealer after the fact. Instead, it leaves the feeling that his life is a ruse. Buckley is the swamp in a populist sense. He affirms the idea of The Establishment as a thing by virtue of the way that he was able to freely move within it. That he was also a segregationist is a feature, not a bug.
As such, the book shakes up the usual routine of him as the elevated form of pundit that would later be replaced by bombast and grift. Instead, Buckley is we have Matt Walsh at home. It is a totally different sense of profound disappointment than I expected, and not a factor of the ultimate quality of the book, though, perhaps misgivings about what the book treats insufficiently. In general, I think it a strong book as evidenced by the volume here. Faced with so many topics that could be books of their own it still manages an explanation that covers a topic like the National Review as a whole, Buckley's variability on race, or his story-worthy family in a comprehensive way.
My thanks to the author, Sam Tanenhaus, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Random House, for making the ARC available to me.
Buckley has a legacy of being the adult in the room, the principled and erudite branch of the conservative party, particularly in contrast to the washed-up performers who make up the corpus of contemporary commentary. The biography dismantles all of that. It is a dry text, but it seems so out of necessity. If I understand correctly this project has been in the works for over a decade, and it shows with the sense of the need to impart volumes of information. This overrides any particular them about the subject of the biography, excluding that the author likes the Uno Reverse Card school where a virtue or vice must be followed in immediate succession by its opposite.
The author gets into Buckley's anti-Semitic and anti-Black background (via his family) and the way that the National Review and his writing projects were about pulling the Republican party further right in things like his adoration of McCarthy and hatred of Eisenhower, through to his surprising and somewhat covered up part in Watergate. Buckley's later career breaks with the consensus that put him more in the radical centrist school (much like David Brooks, whom he trained), and there is something of a running theme about how much he has changed his views as opposed to his methods. Buckley on race, and trying to discern what changed, if anything changed, is a topic for the future.
I cannot call a 1000 page book too short and still look myself in the mirror, but the closing part of Buckley's career gets a quick glance as compared to the rest, to the point that I feel it suspicious. It reads as pathos, the Cold Warrior trying to hold by moving into writing Tom Clancy fan fiction, but it also provides a thesis for his career: Buckley had shockingly crude comments about AIDS, that are then contrasted with his personal treatment of queer people and how same thought about him and his opinions as worthwhile. Like you want to be able to say that this was a person who was master at separating out the private and the political, who could perform at being a jerk while then being a square dealer after the fact. Instead, it leaves the feeling that his life is a ruse. Buckley is the swamp in a populist sense. He affirms the idea of The Establishment as a thing by virtue of the way that he was able to freely move within it. That he was also a segregationist is a feature, not a bug.
As such, the book shakes up the usual routine of him as the elevated form of pundit that would later be replaced by bombast and grift. Instead, Buckley is we have Matt Walsh at home. It is a totally different sense of profound disappointment than I expected, and not a factor of the ultimate quality of the book, though, perhaps misgivings about what the book treats insufficiently. In general, I think it a strong book as evidenced by the volume here. Faced with so many topics that could be books of their own it still manages an explanation that covers a topic like the National Review as a whole, Buckley's variability on race, or his story-worthy family in a comprehensive way.
My thanks to the author, Sam Tanenhaus, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Random House, for making the ARC available to me.
Charles Sumner: Conscience of a Nation by Zaakir Tameez
challenging
emotional
informative
inspiring
slow-paced
5.0
Can someone make a musical about this guy? While secular music is still permitted?
This is a biography of Charles Sumner, the Massachusetts senator before, during, and after the U.S. Civil War. Sumner was an early member of no less than three political parties (Free Soil, Republican, and Liberal), all of them influential in their era, yet none around today.
The author, a lawyer himself like Sumner, focuses on Sumner's relevance in his jurisprudence, a sort of small-c, small-p conservative progressivism. While at a time when the Constitution was irreconcilable to human dignity and civil rights, Sumner represented the redemptive take. The Constitution stood for an increase in liberty, thus it should always be read with that in mind. He also gave us the term equal protection under the law, at least as a term of art, and the name Alaska, or popularized it.
Sumner's oratory was legendary. He has, perhaps, the benefit of history, but he put his considerable education to its best political use. Likewise his Rolodex. The list of Sumner's confidants and corespondents would overwhelm a review to try and list, so the clever comments fly freely between them. It also earned him enemies, notably within his own party(ies) that would effectively block him from any office outside of senator. Oh, yeah, and the guy who beat him up on the Senate floor.
This is a masterful biography. It is long, and moves slowly, but it is worth it. The author is a lawyer acting as historian, which works because it manages to provide a lot more context to Sumner's life and work. The relevance of Sumner's father and grandfather in his beliefs is particularly interesting in what can only be described as trauma working itself out well. The speculation on his sexuality is middling. I feel like it is going to draw a lot of attention, and outside of the impossibly of speculation, Sumner scans to me less gay than asexual, with a misogynistic streak that seems drawn from the Greek and Roman work with which he was familiar. (Okay, there is that book, but he did not write it).
What moves it from like to love for me is the time spent on Sumner's career after the U.S. Civil War and how that ought to re-frame our thinking about the country.
There are many figures who were important in their time and are forgotten about now. That is what history is. The act of repeating and restating that to figure out what is meaningful. In the case of Sumner, his reduction to a AP history note about the causes of the Civil War is more than the fickleness of memory and reputation, but a memory hole out of the Lost Cause mythos and the result, first of perfidy, then of negligence, of the campaign to re-imagine the Antebellum south as something other than the mother of terrorists and treasoners.
Sumner’s attacker would get written as having a Texas defense, where, sure, it was a crime, but Sumner had it coming fro being so outspoken about slavery, making Sumner less a victim of violence – violence, which should be noted was both premeditated and chosen to invoke the violence of slavery – as someone who shared responsibility for what happened to him.
This is a convenient lacuna. Forgetting why Sumner achieved the popularity he did allows the erasure of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the power that Black voting had and the fear it provoked, before it was crushed, buried under legal arguments that are equal to or better than the ones used for the act around a century later. Sumner has his faults: pride, certainly, no consideration for the American Indian, and an antipathy to women's rights, but he stands out as someone who was not anti-slavery but pro-racial equality. He does not just outshine his contemporaries, but politicians now.
My complaint about the book is that it sort of name checks this elision of Sumner's legacy, but as a blur of quotes in the beginning and the end. Yes, it is outside of the scope of biography, but it seems relevant to understanding the texture of the biography, and what sort of lessons it could take moving forward as the citizens of the republic labor under new attempts to erase Black history et al.
My thanks to the author, Zaakir Tameez, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Henry Holt & Company, for making the ARC available to me.
This is a biography of Charles Sumner, the Massachusetts senator before, during, and after the U.S. Civil War. Sumner was an early member of no less than three political parties (Free Soil, Republican, and Liberal), all of them influential in their era, yet none around today.
The author, a lawyer himself like Sumner, focuses on Sumner's relevance in his jurisprudence, a sort of small-c, small-p conservative progressivism. While at a time when the Constitution was irreconcilable to human dignity and civil rights, Sumner represented the redemptive take. The Constitution stood for an increase in liberty, thus it should always be read with that in mind. He also gave us the term equal protection under the law, at least as a term of art, and the name Alaska, or popularized it.
Sumner's oratory was legendary. He has, perhaps, the benefit of history, but he put his considerable education to its best political use. Likewise his Rolodex. The list of Sumner's confidants and corespondents would overwhelm a review to try and list, so the clever comments fly freely between them. It also earned him enemies, notably within his own party(ies) that would effectively block him from any office outside of senator. Oh, yeah, and the guy who beat him up on the Senate floor.
This is a masterful biography. It is long, and moves slowly, but it is worth it. The author is a lawyer acting as historian, which works because it manages to provide a lot more context to Sumner's life and work. The relevance of Sumner's father and grandfather in his beliefs is particularly interesting in what can only be described as trauma working itself out well. The speculation on his sexuality is middling. I feel like it is going to draw a lot of attention, and outside of the impossibly of speculation, Sumner scans to me less gay than asexual, with a misogynistic streak that seems drawn from the Greek and Roman work with which he was familiar. (Okay, there is that book, but he did not write it).
What moves it from like to love for me is the time spent on Sumner's career after the U.S. Civil War and how that ought to re-frame our thinking about the country.
There are many figures who were important in their time and are forgotten about now. That is what history is. The act of repeating and restating that to figure out what is meaningful. In the case of Sumner, his reduction to a AP history note about the causes of the Civil War is more than the fickleness of memory and reputation, but a memory hole out of the Lost Cause mythos and the result, first of perfidy, then of negligence, of the campaign to re-imagine the Antebellum south as something other than the mother of terrorists and treasoners.
Sumner’s attacker would get written as having a Texas defense, where, sure, it was a crime, but Sumner had it coming fro being so outspoken about slavery, making Sumner less a victim of violence – violence, which should be noted was both premeditated and chosen to invoke the violence of slavery – as someone who shared responsibility for what happened to him.
This is a convenient lacuna. Forgetting why Sumner achieved the popularity he did allows the erasure of the Civil Rights Act of 1866, the power that Black voting had and the fear it provoked, before it was crushed, buried under legal arguments that are equal to or better than the ones used for the act around a century later. Sumner has his faults: pride, certainly, no consideration for the American Indian, and an antipathy to women's rights, but he stands out as someone who was not anti-slavery but pro-racial equality. He does not just outshine his contemporaries, but politicians now.
My complaint about the book is that it sort of name checks this elision of Sumner's legacy, but as a blur of quotes in the beginning and the end. Yes, it is outside of the scope of biography, but it seems relevant to understanding the texture of the biography, and what sort of lessons it could take moving forward as the citizens of the republic labor under new attempts to erase Black history et al.
My thanks to the author, Zaakir Tameez, for writing the book, and to the publisher, Henry Holt & Company, for making the ARC available to me.
The Winter Girl by Matt Marinovich
dark
mysterious
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
Comfort Me with Apples by Catherynne M. Valente
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.75
Authority by Jeff VanderMeer
challenging
dark
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
When Among Crows by Veronica Roth
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.75
The book opens with our protagonist...er...we do not really know that they are our protagonist, but our protagonist is getting a powerful flower through an archery contest with a nature spirit in a Chicago Park District facility.
That pretty well lays out the entire plot, really. Were I inclined to be derisive, I would call it a sort of Mad Libs project where this is indistinguishable from any other urban fantasy, save its inclusions of both "Slavic folklore" and "Chicago," the former that you usually have to pull from The Witcher series (one of the inspirations cited by the author), the latter that have several contenders in the fantasy space, but - to this book's credit - none with as much veracity of the City So Real. (Maybe not the Uber to the steel mill.)
Except that it is also not Polish mythology, in that sort of way of Urban Fantasy that cannot resist hitting frappe and mixing in any other good mythological bits from other cultures, or otherwise treating them as a uniform whole of mythic existence. All of course operating under the noses of mere mortals, with the less mere of them doing something about it.
There are high notes. The action scenes are good. The Twist is the best kind, one that you foresee but hope is not going to happen (and of course it does). The magic was great, embracing the way that I always want to see magic work. And look, havingBaba Jaga the reason for the Uptown Theater being as it is and having her live over the Buena Park Harold's is a level of genius that makes me want to pay for the author's Chicago flag tattoo.
The book however spends too much time dwelling in explanations on the ways of the supernatural and what everything is called and really is, and the romance feels distinctly Bioware. But it is short and fun. Maybe not unique, but definitely distinctive.
That pretty well lays out the entire plot, really. Were I inclined to be derisive, I would call it a sort of Mad Libs project where this is indistinguishable from any other urban fantasy, save its inclusions of both "Slavic folklore" and "Chicago," the former that you usually have to pull from The Witcher series (one of the inspirations cited by the author), the latter that have several contenders in the fantasy space, but - to this book's credit - none with as much veracity of the City So Real. (Maybe not the Uber to the steel mill.)
Except that it is also not Polish mythology, in that sort of way of Urban Fantasy that cannot resist hitting frappe and mixing in any other good mythological bits from other cultures, or otherwise treating them as a uniform whole of mythic existence. All of course operating under the noses of mere mortals, with the less mere of them doing something about it.
There are high notes. The action scenes are good. The Twist is the best kind, one that you foresee but hope is not going to happen (and of course it does). The magic was great, embracing the way that I always want to see magic work. And look, having
The book however spends too much time dwelling in explanations on the ways of the supernatural and what everything is called and really is, and the romance feels distinctly Bioware. But it is short and fun. Maybe not unique, but definitely distinctive.
Hell House by Richard Matheson
emotional
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5
Hell house: like Hill House, but with an a!
The premise of Hell House is that of Hill House, where a diverse set of people, some with diverse supernatural talents, allegedly, go to investigate a haunted house of considerable repute. The similarity extends to the leader, a professor who occupies a sort of liminal space as both most skeptic and most believer, and his wife, who invites herself.
The differences mount quickly though, starting with how the all the sexual and romantic attraction of Hill, often overstated in discussion, are in Hell fully turgid and exposed, in a way that slips right past spicy and into something resembling explotation cinema. Mattheson, always with the screenwriter's chops, is at full form here. The horror scenes are visual and memorably scary, more than in Hill which can be frustrating in its uncertainty.
In fact, subtlety overall is not the book's think. There is a maxim about horror that it is about the problems that the characters bring into the setting that the get laid bare by the unnatural occurrences. In Hell, this is lampshaded. Not only is it unclear to the reader, it is unclear to the characters, and something worried over.
Both Hill and Hell are about the animus of the place, to the point that discussing this plot-central facet much further is full of spoliers. However, they both take this notion and run with it in opposite directions. This makes Hell less scary than Hill to me. This is a matter of your taste in horror however.
One thing is for sure: the creators of the Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House definitely read Hell House. The same goes for The September House. Curiously, this makes me regard the Nexflix series lower and Orlando's book higher.
There are three things that make Hell a weaker story than Hill. The first is not a fault, not really, but Hell operates as a much more conventional horror story. It does so well - again, Matheson is unimpeachable in his skills around this - but I find it harder to rate up with Hill, which transcends genre, with Jackson at the peak of her skills. The second is an artifact of history, which is that the decades in which the respective stories are set (50s for Hill and 70s for Hell) create a much less appealing mise en scene.
The third is the real issue here, which is that the opening of Hell is much weaker. Or maybe it is the characterization in general. Often the difference between good and bad horror is not the scary parts, but the interstitial material, how it makes you feel about these people and where it all leads. Hell takes a long time for it to create any sort of investment in the characters or their situation, introducing various interesting but dissatisfactory elements that lack trenchancy.
Hill is so far from that, so far, in a way that is superior to all other fiction, so it is a tough comparable. But I might have cashiered out were it not Matheson. It does get there, starting at about a fourth of the way in, but still the pathos is in the situation, more than the characters.
The upside to writing a more traditional haunted house is that Matheson is able to provide Hell with a satisfactory solve, something that others complain about Hill, and this keeps it in the highly readable category, but I was disappointed here. Not because Hell and Hill are comparable or it is a knockoff, but because Hell fails to live up to its high reputation.
The premise of Hell House is that of Hill House, where a diverse set of people, some with diverse supernatural talents, allegedly, go to investigate a haunted house of considerable repute. The similarity extends to the leader, a professor who occupies a sort of liminal space as both most skeptic and most believer, and his wife, who invites herself.
The differences mount quickly though, starting with how the all the sexual and romantic attraction of Hill, often overstated in discussion, are in Hell fully turgid and exposed, in a way that slips right past spicy and into something resembling explotation cinema. Mattheson, always with the screenwriter's chops, is at full form here. The horror scenes are visual and memorably scary, more than in Hill which can be frustrating in its uncertainty.
In fact, subtlety overall is not the book's think. There is a maxim about horror that it is about the problems that the characters bring into the setting that the get laid bare by the unnatural occurrences. In Hell, this is lampshaded. Not only is it unclear to the reader, it is unclear to the characters, and something worried over.
Both Hill and Hell are about the animus of the place, to the point that discussing this plot-central facet much further is full of spoliers. However, they both take this notion and run with it in opposite directions. This makes Hell less scary than Hill to me. This is a matter of your taste in horror however.
One thing is for sure: the creators of the Netflix series The Haunting of Hill House definitely read Hell House. The same goes for The September House. Curiously, this makes me regard the Nexflix series lower and Orlando's book higher.
There are three things that make Hell a weaker story than Hill. The first is not a fault, not really, but Hell operates as a much more conventional horror story. It does so well - again, Matheson is unimpeachable in his skills around this - but I find it harder to rate up with Hill, which transcends genre, with Jackson at the peak of her skills. The second is an artifact of history, which is that the decades in which the respective stories are set (50s for Hill and 70s for Hell) create a much less appealing mise en scene.
The third is the real issue here, which is that the opening of Hell is much weaker. Or maybe it is the characterization in general. Often the difference between good and bad horror is not the scary parts, but the interstitial material, how it makes you feel about these people and where it all leads. Hell takes a long time for it to create any sort of investment in the characters or their situation, introducing various interesting but dissatisfactory elements that lack trenchancy.
Hill is so far from that, so far, in a way that is superior to all other fiction, so it is a tough comparable. But I might have cashiered out were it not Matheson. It does get there, starting at about a fourth of the way in, but still the pathos is in the situation, more than the characters.
The upside to writing a more traditional haunted house is that Matheson is able to provide Hell with a satisfactory solve, something that others complain about Hill, and this keeps it in the highly readable category, but I was disappointed here. Not because Hell and Hill are comparable or it is a knockoff, but because Hell fails to live up to its high reputation.