A Sicilian Romance

by Ann Radcliffe

Published: 1790

Link: https://librivox.org/a-sicilian-romance-by-ann-radcliffe/

Listening Time: 7 hours 21 minutes


Emilia and Julia are two sisters who live in a remote castle on the island of Sicily, Italy. They are raised by their governess Madam de Menon because their dad already has an older son and doesn't want to give them the time of day. He's off partying in the city with their brother, and their new stepmom, Madame de Vellorno (who is kind of a cougar).

One day Julia and Emilia's dad announces he's coming back and he's bringing a party with him! The girls get really excited because they don't get much of a chance to hang around a lot of people. It kind of feels like Anna in Frozen to me (except they don't sing).

I was totally expecting their brother to be a spoiled jerk but he's not. He's actually really nice and he brought his really cute friend with him! Julia and her brother's bff fall in love and from this point it feels like Julia becomes the primary character in the story. Well, this causes a problem for two reasons: 1) Dad already has another man picked out for Julia, and 2) Stepmom is being all creepy and making unwanted advances towards Julia's intended. Both of them will do almost anything to keep the two apart.

The story has a lot of twists and turns. At one point I stopped reading because it looked like a character (who I liked) died. But when I went back to the story there were even more twists to it. There are a lot of dark secrets in this family but it actually ends pretty happy. :D

I really enjoyed the twists with the girl's governess, she's kind of like the Professor Lupin in the movie version of "The Prisoner of Azkaban": where at first you think he's just a mentor character, but he's also an important link to the past and helps them uncover a bit of a mystery if you pay attention to what s/he's saying.

I think the biggest failing in this book is there isn't as much dialogue as I'd like. I really enjoy how Mrs Radcliff crafts conversation in some of her later stories and there isn't so much of that here. However, it is one of Mrs Radcliffe's first books and she does have A LOT of intrigue and suspense in the story, and I can see how this style developed in her later stories.


This is the end of my Gothic Literary Adventures of 2015.


It's been mostly a solitary adventure. For me it felt like this:

(So I'm glad I got to share some of the #feelings I've been carrying around all year:) )

Next year my reading adventures are to include children's stories: some of which I've read before (Like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), others will be a new experience (The Alice in Wonderland series)

I'll also will continue my book vs. movie adventures:

Next will be "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall" (LOVED the book, We'll see how the 1996 version holds up!).

If you like to read, I invite you to friend or follow me on goodreads:

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/1952119-ebster-davis

If you're not familiar with the site, it's kind of like a social network where you update what books you're reading and what you think of them as you reading. I update there regularly, and I think it's a really fun way to connect with other readers and find new books to read. 

Thanks for sharing this adventure with me! I wish you happiness and peace as we enter the holiday season :D

The Castle Wolfenbach

By Eliza Parsons

Published: 1793

Theme: Courage

To be honest, I haven't been able to finish this one yet, I'm just under half-way thorough. It's in the public domain and there is a copy of it on the internet. It's free, but it's not on librivox yet so I have to physically read it and that's been a challenge for me this past year (although I have been getting better).

Here's the story so far:

It's about a young noblewoman named Matilda Weimar, she's on the run with her elderly manservant and gets taken in by generous persons of lower social class than herself (a few of whom happen to live in an old abandoned castle...which I think is really cool!). Matilda explores the castle and discovers some of the mysteries left by the previous inhabitants; the Wolfenbaches. She also get's comfortable enough to divulge some of her own mysterious past to her new friends.

After a while, Matilda's new friends help her find a job as a companion and friend to a noblewoman who is their distant relative. Life is looking like it's getting better and then a figure from Matilda's past shows up and

he's a pretty destructive, creepy guy.  

The impression I had of early-gothic female characters is that they're really wimpy, there's a whole infograph about how much they faint or swoon, but so far I'm not finding that. They're pretty brave, sometimes even more so than their male companions.

Matilda's got her Alfred Pennyworth looking after her, but he's not gonna go to the creepy upstairs of the castle. Matilda does because she's got this little inkling that maaaaybbe the house isn't really haunted. She's really proactive in her life, too. When her guardian starts getting creepy and confusing, she doesn't keep quiet and passive until the situation hits a crisis point, she and Alfred takes action.

I also really like that, when two women get together in this story, they don't talk about boys...they talk about other girls! This story is over 200 years old and it passes the bechdel test. I feel like Catherine Moreland had better female literary role-models than I did...


I'm hoping all of the "Horrid Novels" in the public domain eventually become available as audiobooks. I actually bought a headset and started reading this one aloud, but I don't quite like the sound of my voice so I'm not sure if I'll finish it.

By Ann Radcliffe 

Published: 1797

Link: https://librivox.org/the-italian-by-ann-radcliffe/

Listening Time: 18 hours 47 minutes

Theme: karma

This story is also by Ann Radcliffe and I felt like she did such a good job with the character development for the heroes in "The Mysteries of Udolpho" that I had high expectations for this one. In this one, though, she takes all of her character development and gives it to the villain. The main characters feel like something out of a romantic comedy: their motives are simplistic, they want to be together and some mysterious entity is trying to keep them apart.

Monk Schedoni has a backstory, and tragedy and angst! And he's eeeevvvvilll. Just read the part where he's convincing a certain main characters mom that it's perfectly OK to kill an Innocent girl. (He almost convinced me!). The twist with his character was pretty remarkable, I'd say it's the best thing about this story.

Unfortunately he's the only thing remotely "Goth-y" in this book. Like I mentioned earlier, everyone else feels like they're living in a rom-com and I think that could have worked towards this story's advantage:

• Vivaldi trying to convince Ellena he loves her (even though her face has been covered with a veil the whole time they've ever been around each other)
• Vivaldi trying to convince Ellena's foster-parentals that he's totes not a creepy stalker (even though he follows her home repeatedly)
• Vivaldi being in turn creepily stalked by an unknown person
• Wacky-side characters who just can't get to the point

But I feel she spent so much time trying to make them funny, she forgot to make them likable.

I feel like this is just one of those stories that you read for the villain. Those aren't always bad types of stories, but at the time I read this I felt like the concept is overdone. Yes, we know sometimes people are marginalized and/or misunderstood...NO it's NOT Ok to kill people!!

There is one really powerful point Mrs Radcliffe makes at the end through the lives of Ellena's "real parents" and how they, unknowing that she's their daughter, help or harm her by the types of lives they lead; the good and bad they do affects her (which in turn affects them). What goes around comes around kind of thing.





I'm currently seeing Vivaldi like this:

I don't think I've ever seen anyone who looks exactly like Schedoni, but he'd be like an older Phantom of The Opera, but with a beard.

The Mysteries of Udolpho

It's October 31st :D

Happy Halloween! I hope you have a good day, stay safe and eat lots and lots of candy.

I'm so glad I got this one done, and I'm glad it's my "Halloween Post". There are a few more stories I have to go through, but really this is the best. 

So...Trick or Treat!:

  

by Ann Radcliff

Published: 1790 

Link: https://librivox.org/mysteries-of-udolpho-by-ann-radcliffe/

Listening Time: 32 hours (It's actually a set of four books)

Quote: “A well-informed mind is the best security against the contagion of folly and vice. The vacant mind is ever on the watch for relief, and ready to plunge into error, to escape from the languor of idleness. Store it with ideas, teach it the pleasure of thinking; and the temptations of the world without, will be counteracted by the gratifications derived from the world within.”

Theme: discipline

Of the first-wave gothic stories, this one is my favorite. I can see why Catherine Moreland (and Jane Austen) thought so highly of it. For someone like me, who prefers short stories to long ones, it took a bit of adjustment but it was actually really absorbing. There are these beautiful descriptions of various landscapes and travels. 

It was also really suspenseful: there's a couple of really great mysteries going on. Some of them center around what's happening in the Castle Udolpho and some of them have to do with the St Albert family history. 

But my very favorite part was the characters. When I read the last Harry Potter book, I was really impressed with how Mrs Rowling wrote Harry. Throughout his childhood, Harry has these role models who he looks up to, and kind of idolizes: Hagrid, Sirius, Dumbledore and Lupin. As the story progresses, and in the last book particularly, Harry has to develop his own fortitude and become his own individual. 

I remember reading The Deathly Hallows right after it came out and being so proud of Harry standing up to Lupin when he was wrong. Hermione couldn't do that, Ron wouldn't have done that. Harry is not just a man, he is THE Man. 

That's pretty much how I felt about Emily's coming of age in these books. She's just a kid at the start and she goes through a lot of terrifying stuff. But instead of making her a damsel in distress character, she becomes her own person. She becomes THE Woman. 

Emily St Albert-

(This is how I see her as a kid, also my face for Arwen as an elfling.)

A part of what makes Emily such a resilient character is the way she was raised. Both of Emily's parents were born to wealthy but semi-dysfunctional families and decided they didn't want that for their own lives. They're kind of like the hippie-homeschooler family of the 1600's.

So Emily is raised as a naturalist. Then, while she is still young, the family suffers a tragedy. Her two brothers die and her Mom and Dad get sick. Although they recover, her parent's comes to the realization that they won't always be there to protect their daughter. And because of the way they've chosen to live their lives, their respective families can't be fully relied on to provide that support and protection. If they die, Emily will be on her own and she'll have to deal on her own. 

The term disciplining sometimes has a negative connotation today; people associate it with things like a parent/child power struggle or abuse, but for Emily it means that she was given responsibilities and expectations at an early age. 

In society, particularly back then, girls were given different expectations than boys. Girls could be temperamental or flamboyant and it wasn't as big a deal to control their behavior because they're not going to be the ones to own property or make their own living, and they're typically going to have a father or husband to protect them from consequences of this behavior. Emily's parents know this isn't going to be the case for her: she's already their primary heir and they both have poor health so she's given less lenience in her behavior. She learns what's acceptable, and what's not acceptable, how to compromise but most importantly she learns about her inherent worth, something that no one, no matter what they say or how they treat her, can ever take away. 


Valancourt Duvarney-

When Emily and Mr St Albert meet Valancourt, they strike up a friendship really easily. Mr St Albert sees Valancourt as a vision of what he was like at a younger age. He's generous, sincere, and a genuinely good-hearted person, but also naive and inexperienced...As Mr St Albert likes to think, "This young man has never been at Paris."

When he falls in love with Emily, he thinks he can fix all of her problems for her. I find it surprising that a lot of readers think she should have just married him instead of going into her Aunt's custody until she came of age. That would have been a disaster for both of them. He's so clearly ill-prepared to be a husband at the start. Emily needed to grow up and become her own woman, and Valancourt had to go to Paris.

Singor Montoni-

This is Emily's uncle by marriage. He can put on a charming and affectionate face but he's really a thug and  he's dangerous. Emily going toe-to-toe with him was one of my favorite parts of the story, this was when I realized she'd grown up into the woman.  She figures out that there are times to be a Griffindor, and there are times where it's better to be a Ravenclaw. 





Note:

I really liked the librivox recording, but there are a few readers who have pretty thick accents. This didn't become a problem until the very end when there's this really, really really BIG reveal (what's behind that curtain...huh?!?!) and I couldn't figure out what the word was so I had to listen to that little segment several times...

Then I laughed.

I'd really love to own a print copy of this series. Not a paperback, but hardcover and preferably in the full four volumes. That would be awesome!

The Monk

by Matthew Gregory Lewis

Published: 1796

Link: https://librivox.org/the-monk-a-romance-by-matthew-lewis/

Listening Time: 16 hours 17 minutes

Quote: "Would you feign penitence, and again act an Hypocrite's part?"

Theme: Virtue, hypocrisy

(I think it's super cool I got to buy volume three of this book on ebay.

 I could have gotten all three, but they were real expensive.

 But still... #chills!!)

In Northanger Abbey, there's this one part where Catherine Moreland dances with this guy at a party and she wants really bad to like this guy because he's her best friend's brother and her brother's best friend.

So she tries to break the ice:

(Catherine's a total book worm)

Catherine is a bit disappointed with her partners response:  "I never read novels; I have something else to do. Novels are all so full of nonsense and stuff [...] except The Monk; I read that t'other day; but as for all the others, they are the stupidest things in creation."

To people in Ms Austen's day, this response tells a lot about the type of person Catherine's partner, Mr Thorpe, is. Pretty much everyone back then (with the exception of Clergymen's daughters, apparently) was familiar with "The Monk" by it's reputation. It was infamous for it's lurid and edgy content.

I like to think it would be sort of like if I went to a church dance today and the guy I was dancing with says:

"Books are dumb...but I did enjoy Fifty Shades of Gray,"

(...and he's saying it in earnest.)

It's probably a reflection on how desensitized modern society is by this type of violence and perversion because I found that, content wise, this book is not too different from the types of things we would watch on TV today.

The first 38 minutes of this librivox recording is basically the narrator apologizing for how mediocre the story is going to be. By the time I got to the end of that, I was prepared for a mindless read. I thought, "OK, this book is going to be laughably ridiculous. I'll have fun...bring it!"

It wasn't like that at all. I mean, Mr Lewis isn't the worlds best author or anything but he psychologically gets his characters. He's making a point and I can't discount it because in some ways I feel that it's still relevant today.

___________

The story follows several different sub-plots, but there are two central characters who tie them together: Ambrosio (the monk) and Agnes (a novitiate nun). These two people only talk to each other, like, once in the whole story, but their interaction is basically the crux of the story: the central feature that ties all the various sub-plots together.

I also think that the two characters follow parallel paths (they were both destined for a life of service from a young age, and they are both not quite suited for it personality-wise as they'd like to be) so it's interesting for me to compare their character arcs.

Ultimately though, neither of them is the hero of this story.

• Ambrosio

I called him Antonio through the whole story because the big plot twist on, like, the very last page was SOOOOOOOOOO obvious from chapter 1.

I think that this is intentional. Ambrosio's character arc is kind of like Oedipus': the thrill isn't from suspense as much as it is from anticipation.

A while back (before I read this book) I got to watch a comic-con panel with these authors talking about writing devices and character development: things like The Heroes Journey, Heroes and antiheroes. And I got to ask them a question about villains, and I got an answer that I think applies to what's happening in this story to Ambrosio:

(I am paraphrasing here, they didn't use these terms exactly)

'Becoming a hero is about becoming a better man, becoming a villain is about becoming the man you already are underneath.'

Mr Lewis actually says something to this effect in the book: All throughout his life everyone thought Ambrosio was being selfless and devout, but he was really just competitive: he wanted to be a better monk than anyone else. These traits are not bad in themselves, they would actually serve him really well if he were in the military, but in the life of a man who's compelled to be restrained, and who's life is devoted to service and piety...they've been warped into something truly malignant and ultimately monstrous.

• Agnes

Agnes is far from perfect however, however, when she does something wrong she actually makes an effort to try to make it right. Unlike Ambrosio, she was raised in a normal family, so she knows there are other paths of life that she could follow. She has a healthy outlet for behavior that would otherwise be destructive. Ambrosio doesn't see his life that way.

Unfortunately for Agnes, though, she's a woman and because she wasn't raised as part of the establishment like Ambrosio was, the punishment for her misconduct is extreme.

Ambrisio's actions (until the very end) are pretty much ignored by everyone, even after people start to become suspicious of him, because he's in a position of authority and no one wants to challenge him. As far as the establishment is concerned, Agnes is a nobody and they seem to think nobody would notice if she disappeared off the face of the earth.

Fortunately that's not true. Agnes does have people who love her and who'll go at great lengths to get her back. However it will take even more than the valiant efforts of our heroes to overthrow the corruption that's festering in the abbey.

(Fortunately the Inquisiton is here to save the day!)

• Conclusion

I can't recommend this story for everyone, but for me it was haunting not because of the supernatural elements, but because I feel that psychologically it was so on point.

Being raised away from corrupting influences (or sheltered) does not ensure that you'll grow up to be a good person. Ambrosio would like to be able to blame his corruption on the demons but even Rosario was only using what was inside him already, and that was quite enough to work with.

In the Bible, Jesus talks about how the stuff you consume isn't the what pollutes your heart; it's what comes out of your heart that determines who you are. I get that this can be a difficult concept to practice, and to teach. It's easy to tell people what they should and shouldn't do: Don't watch R rated movies, don't watch porn, don't swear, don't dance too close to your partner, don't kiss passionately...

It's A LOT harder to teach people what to be.

We can't see what's in another person's heart; we can only see (and judge them) by their actions. You'd think protecting people from exposure to evil (particularly at young and impressionable ages) gives them opportunity to develop their psyches free of a corrupting influence. But in reality it's not that simple. A lot of the time this type sheltering and focus on behavior control becomes a maladaptive practice in and of itself:

Instead of "creating a clean heart", people go into the world unprepared to face temptation.

Instead of being virtuous, they're just better actors than everyone else.


Note:

a. I can't believe how many people bought the whole Rosario thing. There's been like, three or four people who say things like "But I really thought she luvvved him...she cried that one time." PUH-LEASE! Her tactics were the most obvious thing in the story>>>even more obvious than Ambrosio's 'Secret identity'. The only reason Antonio/Ambrosio fell for it is because he has no idea how actual human women actually talk. He spend 27 years in a monastery...since he was three years old!

b.There is a lot that's dark and disturbing in this story, but the most horrific of the material didn't have to do with violent or explicit acts, or even the demons out to get you (cuz the demons can only use what you already have in your heart).

The most disturbing part of the story is towards the end where there is this really unnerving conversation between Ambrosio and a young kid. You really see he's truly become a predator and starts subtly testing his intended victims' sexual knowledge so he can see in what ways he can take advantage of her. It was horrible, because those are the same tactics sexual predators use today. It was really difficult to get through that part.

Vathek

And now it's time for the stories that actually prompted me to do my 2015 Gothic Reading Challenge. 

It actually all started when I read Jane Austen's stories: one of the first she wrote (last to be published) is called Northanger Abbey.  In it, Ms Austen references and affectionately parodies a lot of gothic tropes from books that she grew up reading. 

It occurred to me that Ms Austen's idea of a "gothic novel" and my idea of it could be, like, really different! She lived so long ago; she didn't know Frankenstein or Dracula, or any of the works of Edgar Allen Poe because they all came after her day. 

What did her "Gothic" look like? I wanted to find out!

My initial goal was to read all of Jane Austen's "Horrid Novels": the gothic books that she references in Northanger Abbey. I haven't completed them yet, and I suppose my Gothic Reading Challenge won't be complete until I do (Just like my Jane Austen Reading Adventures weren't complete until I read all of her juvenilia...) 

This week (and possibly into the next, I'm a little behind), I'll be exploring stories from that era: the "first wave gothic" novels. These are the old school! Unpolluted with their subsequent mixing with other genres. Some of them are a bit hard to get through because of the language, if your not used to it. But some of them are really, really epic and should be read by more people! (spoiler alert...The Mysteries of Udolpho is AWE-SOME!)

The History of the Caliph Vathek

by William Beckford 

Published: 1782 (French), 1786 (English)

Listening Time: 3 hours 51 minutes

Link: https://librivox.org/the-history-of-the-caliph-vathek-by-william-beckford/

Quote:   "I began to think [...] that the vengeance of heaven was asleep."

Theme: Ambition

This story definitely uses a different kind of gothic aesthetic because it takes place in the oriental world. Different cultural practices and different beliefs about human nature and the afterlife in that region of the world were seen as really exotic in Mr Beckford's time. I think he did a really good job capturing all of that. 

I'm pretty sure he used 1001 Arabian Nights as a big inspiration in storytelling though...

It's about an Arabian Caliph (regional king) named Vathek and his destructive quest for power.  He's ascended to his throne at an early age and now he's pretty much at the height of his power. Everyone fears and adores him, and he has no shame in indulging himself in anything he wants. 

Vathek has a very close relationship with his mother, Carathis, who acts as his mage. She is a necromancer, and she's devoted her life to helping her son gain more power and influence.

"Let me be devoured in flames, provided he will sit on the throne of Solomon."

So this guy, who can basically boss anyone around he wants and get whatever he wants, meets this mysterious merchant sells him knives with demonic inscriptions on them that nobody can translate. He becomes obsessed with knowing what these mystical knives say and after some run-around, he finds they hold the key to him gaining world domination...knowledge derived from Eblis (the devil) himself.

For some reason, Vathek and mom think it's a cool idea to follow through with this course of action and they basically spend the rest of the story doing horrible thing after horrible thing in pursuit of his goal.

[I see no way this could go wrong!] 

It basically ends as you might expect for being as story about a guy who's trying to make a deal with the devil. And he's such a horrible person, you really don't feel sorry for him. 

• Djinn

Middle-eastern people weren't really into ghosts, they didn't really believe in them. So supernatural phenomena like hauntings and premonitions etc were often attributed to another order of beings. These beings are living people like you and I, but their bodies have different physical properties; which means they have almost superhuman abilities. These people are called Djinn, or genies.

I really like genies. When you learn more about them, they're fascinating. There's A LOT more to them then wishes, and magic lamps, and flying carpets and all the icons western culture is familiar with.

And this story actually presents Djinn in a pretty accurate way:

A Djinn can be good or evil. In this story, there's an evil "genius" called Giaour, who's basically the architect of Vathek's destruction. There are also genies who are good or benevolent: one who is protective of human children (he saves them from a horrible horrible fate), and another (called 'The Shepherd') is aligned with Mohammed and the angels. He even tries to act as an advocate for Vathek; he tries to get him to turn back from his horrible path and repent.

Some djinn are bound to elements like the earth, or to fire. Sometimes they are invisible, and other times they manifest themselves as humanoids and don't really look different from ordinary people.

I really like that, even though Vathek's actions are his own, he's being played by forces he can't understand the whole time. He thinks he's got power, he thinks he has the right to seek more. But he's really just fodder for all of these other primordial entities to play with. A little humility would have done him a world of good.

Melmoth the Wanderer

Melmoth the Wanderer 

by Charles Robert Maturin

Link: https://librivox.org/library-of-the-worlds-best-mystery-and-detective-stories-volume-3-by-various/ (Tracks 12 and 13)

Listening Time: 88 minutes 

Quote: “There is no error more absurd, and yet more rooted in the heart of man, than the belief that his sufferings will promote his spiritual safety.” 

Theme: Grace

This edition is an edited version of the whole story. Apparently the narrative of the original version of the story is a bit rambling.  In this version, the narrative of is nested: like a story with in a story. (If you've ever tried to read the original  1001 Arabian Nights, you have an idea of what it's like). I could see how this form of storytelling can get out of hand and be confusing.  But I'd still like to read the original...eventually.

The story told primarily through two people: John Melmoth, the student, and the diary of a traveler named Stanton.

• The Melmoth Family:

John Melmoth, the student, goes home to take care of his ailing, miserly uncle. On his uncle's deathbed, he tells him about their family's secret: they have an ancestor-also named John Melmoth, who is immortal and still wanders the earth.

(So there are like, three Melmoths so far...read carefully, this can get confusing!)

Uncle Melmoth leads John Melmoth, the student,  to a manuscript by Stanton, a guy who spent a long time hunting/being hunted by Melmoth The Wanderer.

This is where the fun begins:

• Stanton's Manuscript: 

Stanton's manuscript gets pretty intense.  The Wanderer first appears as a mysterious bystander at some tragic 'accidents'. And slowly it's pieced together that he's making some really sinister stuff happen. Stanton follows this guy, and he watches some terrible things happen over and over again...but he's unable to catch him as the culprit. 

Watching it all, and being powerless to stop it, literally drives Stanton insane and his family members have him institutionalized. 

By the time he gets to this point, Stanton is completely miserable. And, in the midst of this really horrible insane asylum; with rat feces, crazy people clawing and screaming and icky stuff like that...John Melmoth, the wanderer, appears before him again. And we get to learn his motive:

Everything he did was basically designed for Stanton as a demonstration of his power. His aim is to coerce Stanton to accept a deal: to assume Melmoth the wanderer's soul-pact with the devil.

The pact gives Melmoth not only immortality, but also  immense power over the lives of morals. (As we've seen demonstrated through Stanton's travels). Pretty much the only power he doesn't have his the ability to violate the freewill of others: He can't make people do something they choose not to do.

I don't know if it's the realization of exactly how evil The Wanderer is (that he would actually make such a pact), or the fact that Melmoth would prefer the life of someone who's literally locked in a straight-jacket  in a 1700's-era mental institution to his own life (where he's got all these superhuman abilities and all of this power),  but Stanton's not touching that pact with a ten-foot pole.

• My impression:

Maybe it's because his Stanton's discriptions of misery and woe are so intense, but by the time I got to this point I was like: "WHELL THAT'S JUST GRrREAT! He's still crazy and still locked in this horrible mental institution place...but he's not damned, so I guess that's good..." 

But actually it got better! Because everything horrible that was going on in his life: all the misery that he thought was permanent...and as  hopeless as he thought his situation was...it was all actually temporary.

Eventually he got out of that situation and back to his normal life as a happy guy. He never got to track down The Wanderer again, but he did find the surviving members of Melmoth's family and gave them the story of what had happened to their ancestor. 

It's actually really uplifting. All problems are temporary (unless of course you're Melmoth, and your soul is on loan from the devil...) 

• Melmoth Reconciled

At the end of the story, there's a reference to a sequel called "Melmoth Reclaimed". I wasn't paying proper attention, so I didn't realize that Melmoth Reconciled is not an authorized sequel. It's by another author. 

So as I was listening to it, it started out all serious and then it started getting more and more hokey...like satire. I don't think it was a completely horrible story; it was actually really funny. And it definitely made a memorable statement about how corrupt human nature really is. ("People sell their souls on the stock market every day" type thing) But I was reading it as a legit sequel, and that's not what it was. 

It got me thinking, though, what would it take for Melmoth to really be "Reconciled"? Well within Christian theology, he'd really need to address the Savior. He keeps going around trying to terrorize and coerce humans to save him...wouldn't it be interesting if he actually got apologetic about it? Like, he wants to make it right, but he know he can't...so he (completely humbled and and meek) appeals and submits to the will of God, and he finds that the price has already been paid, he just had to repent and reclaim it?


Yes it's really sappy and whatever, but I don't care. Melmoth is not going to get saved by accident. Finding someone who's sucker enough to assume his soul-pack isn't going to absolve him of the horrible stuff he's done (It just means he's ruined yet another person's life!).

There's only one way to set this right, he probably already knows what it is. It's just a matter of whether or not someone like him is willing to do it. 

Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights

by Emily Bronte

Link: https://librivox.org/wuthering-heights-dramatic-reading-by-emily-bronte/

Listening Time:  11 hours 54 minutes

Quote:  "You said I killed you--haunt me then!"

Theme: Soul mates

My first reading of this story was this year (2015), but I read it as a romance...not as part of my gothic reading challenge. It was only after I'd listened to an essay by Mr Lovecraft (Supernatural Horror in Literature) that I even recognized the gothic and paranormal elements in this story. 

Mr Lovecraft cites this book as an example of how the gothic genre evolved into contemporary weird lit. I'm going to go over some of the points he brings up that convinced me that this is indeed a work of gothic fiction.

Eerie Setting:

The narrator of the story is a guy who moves to the English Countryside. This isn't the kind of country with manicured hedgerows and acres and acres of developed farmland. This is a moor: an isolated, under developed area where nothing grows really well, except peat and heather.

It's cold, and windy and the narrator seeks refuge in the manor house of a guy named Heathcliff. He's surprised to find that his future neighbors are not very pleasant or hospitable. They take him in and he shares dinner with them, but while he is all proper and polite, they behave with contempt and disdain (towards him, and towards each other).

Apparitions/Supernatural Phenomena:

At some point, the narrator finds himself in the attic of the manor (The Manor is called Wuthering Heights). He's going through old papers, including the diary of a young girl named Catherine Earnshaw, then he sees an apparition of a young girl like the one that he was just reading about. When he describes what he saw to the master of the house, Heathcliff is shocked. We're lead to assume he (Heathcliff) hasn't seen any apparition; but he'd really, really like to.

At this point in reading, I didn't take the whole ghost sighting seriously. The narrator had been going through very personal papers of this girl: a girl named Cathy (just like the living girl in the house). And in this really creepy atmosphere...he probably imagined the girl he'd been reading about.

And when Heathcliff hears about the apparition, I kind of just assumed he kind of went crazy. Because it turns out that he and the girl who wrote in that diary were very very close. Losing her has taken a terrible emotional toll on him and he wants her back, even if it's just her ghost.

"Be with me always. Take any form, drive me mad...only do not leave me in this abyss!"

[O.O]

When I first read it, I was just like: "OOOOh-Kay this guy's bonkers..."

 Mr Lovecraft has a different idea; the apparition is real. It's the ghost of Catherine Earnshaw  (Cathy Jr's mother), and she's haunting the house at Wuthering Heights because her soul mate (Heathcliff) is still alive and living there.

Looking back, it doesn't seem like too much of a stretch, it kind of makes sense actually, with the whole emphasis on how deep and abiding Heathcliff and Catherine's connection is.

Referring to their relationship as a transcendent supernatural bond, and not merely a metaphorical one, makes the message of the story a lot more powerful. Catherine and Heathcliff aren't just two people who have common life experiences and similar temperaments (although they do have that as well...); they're linked on a primordial or spiritual level as well.


Love as a spiritual connection:

As the narrator (and we) learn more and more about the lives of Catherine and Heathcliff, one thing that sticks out is that even though they have this connection they didn't always treasure each other the way they should have. 

At one point, Catherine talks to her friend and servant about how she doesn't understand romantic love. She likes her boyfriend (The Not-Heathcliff) because treats her nice and buys her things. Outside of what he can do for her, she doesn't care about him.

Her feelings on Heathcliff are a completely different matter: 

"He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same [...] If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it [...] Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always on my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."


(^^Dang! Those are some really intense #feelings you've got there!)

And those feelings remain consistent throughout her whole life, even after she figures out that it's not going to work out with Heathcliff for various social and economic reasons. I think it's interesting that despite her strong feelings, she's OK with the two of them staying 'just friends'.

You get the feeling that even if they had gotten married, they would have probably still had problems. They have a really hard time connecting with their other family members (this particularly problematic when they each have children of their own). If they actually got married, they'd probably be the type of couple who's fighting and arguing all of the time. Because it's not just a reflection of how they feel about each other, but how they feel about their own person (whether that person exists as a single or a dual entity).

The message I got from this part of story is that having a soulmate is a powerful thing, but it doesn't necessarily have a lot to do with your personal happiness, especially if you don't have a great relationship with yourself in the first place!

"Sinners would be miserable [even] in heaven."

Heathcliff's Identity:

As a literary figure, Heathcliff is kind of like Othello in Shakespeare. As questionable a moral figure as he is, he's really important because he's one of the few notable, romantic figures in Victorian/Romantic literature who is not white. 

Also, a lot of the difficulties he faces in life (feeling like an outsider, suffering abuse, facing discrimination and overcoming it) are all consistent with the struggles a person would face as an ethnic minority during that time.

However, Mr Lovecraft takes it a step further and conceptualizes Heathcliff as a changeling. Maybe not a literal changeling, but as a symbolic one in the story. (Apparently there's a part in the book that refers to him that way, but I don't remember it.) 

(Note: If you're not aware, a changeling is a baby fae or demon who's been switched with a baby human. That's why Heathcliff was supposedly abandoned as a young child: His parents discovered he wasn't the child they wanted...so they left him out to die.)

I think that's kind of dumb. If Heathcliff is basically a baby Satan, than the only reason he's causing havoc in everyone's lives is because it's what he was born to do. It diminishes the struggles he's had to go through.

The idea of Heathcliff as a paranormal entity does communicate one point that I like: that Heathcliff is not a victim in his own life...Kind of a Don't underestimate him. He's a force to be reckoned with. type of thing. 

And I think Heathcliff would like to see himself in that way, too. He certainly showed all those punks back home, he ain't worthless!

Adaptions: 

I'm currently looking for one to watch. I really don't like that most of the time they cast a white actor as Heathcliff. 

There is one version (2011) that uses a mixed race actor: 

It looks promising! Sure hope it's good!

The Fall of the House of Usher

by Edgar Allan Poe

Link: https://librivox.org/the-works-of-edgar-allan-poe-raven-edition-volume-2-by-edgar-allan-poe/ (Track 8)

Listening Time: 52 minutes

Quote: "There are combinations of very simple natural objects that have the power of thus affecting us..."

Theme: Aristocracy, chronic illness

I still think this ties with "Smith of Wootton Major" for my favorite short story.

When I first read it, I was like: "Wow! I don't even know what all these words mean, but they're really, really pretty!"

I like how this story really makes you pay attention. You read (or this year, I listened) to the beginning of a sentence and by the words you think you have an idea of where its heading, but by the end you're in a completely different place. It's my favorite type of writing: it seems flamboyant at first, but as you read it, it becomes very intentional.

The plot has a kind of mystery to it, one that I think is really satisfying even though Mr Poe never explicitly divulges the whole truth. The descriptions also create a really compelling atmosphere throughout.

• The House:

It's been said that The Usher House gets so much description and takes up such a large presence in the story, that it's more of a character than the human characters are. I don't know if I agree with that completely, mostly because I'm really fascinated by Roderick and Madeline and what their story might be, but there is certainly more to the house than it existing simply as a memorable attraction.

On the outside, it looks like a total wreck. After describing the whole exterior of the house and the grounds the narrator kinda goes: 'but hey, it's still standing up so that's good!'

On the inside, it's really gloomy. But the narrator can't explain why he finds it so. There are no skulls, or ravens, or cobwebs. No skeletons or sarcophagi...


It's just a house! And it's full of the things you'd expect to find in a house: tables and chairs and maybe a desk, and definitely a few bookshelves. Books and musical instruments (The Ushers are artists). All the stuff wealthy people would have in their houses, but not anything out of the ordinary to the eyes of our narrator.

(He hasn't found the crypt yet ;)

The narrator comes to the conclusion that the gloomy aura must emanate from how all these objects are arranged.

But his friend, Roderick Usher, has another idea: He believes the house is a living, sentient entity that's shaped the destiny of his family for centuries.

At this point, the narrator starts to think his friend neuroses are being exacerbated and exploited by the family doctor. (who he thinks looks like a shady dude)

• The Family:

When the "peasantry" (basically all the normal people who live nearby) refer to "The House of Usher" they're talking about both the house and the family that lives there. In the public eye, the house and the family are synonymous institutions. He house has been there forever, and the family has lived there forever.

I think it's interesting that Roderick, despite his belief about the vaguely malevolent nature of the house, has no plans or desire to leave it. He's a part of the establishment, and the establishment is such a part of him that he'd lose a big part of his identity of he moved.  I also think it's also likely because he's economically and socially tied to the house, and its/his role in the community there, it's just not practical for him to uproot. Especially when he and his sister are battling this hereditary illness.

Maybe it's because I read it from a modern perspective; where it's a normal thing for families to move around, separate, and grow...but the idea that the house and the family are pretty much extensions of each other is really fascinating:

If the house is a visual representation or extension of the family (or visa versa), then we have two options available to explain what happens to Madeline and Roderick (and the House) at the end of the story.

# 1 is that "The House of Usher" is old and beat up, riddled with disease...they could definitely use some TLC, but there's nothing particularly ominous about them or what's happening to them. They're gloomy and neurotic because they're lonely; they don't have cousins or aunts or uncles or a big extended family to rely on because their ancestors' brothers and sisters all died before they could create nuclear families of their own.

(As far as the Usher line of decent goes...)

#2 is that "The House of Usher" is indeed a malignant entity; or that the house (structure) and the house and the family feed off of each other in some way.



I used to favor the second explanation (and I still kind of do, because it plays into my whole Lizard People theory)...but then I played the "Dark Tales: Edgar Allan Poe" version of the game and it was really silly. I feel bad for it, because all the others in the series that I've played are so good. And the graphics were of such good quality...and the voice actors were awesome...but

it was...

just...

like, it was really dumb:

(They really capitalized on the "vacant eye-like windows" though)

Since then, I've been re-evaluating the first scenario:

For a long time, it was hard for me to accept Roderick's affection for his sister as 100 percent genuine, given his actions later in the story.

But last night at work I was kind of thinking about it. Wait a minute, this is Mr Allan Poe we're talking about! Chronic illness was a big feature of his personal and family life. Dealing with debilitating physical and emotional pain was something he was probably really familiar with. On some days you might feel OK, and you can function, and then the next day you feel so bad you can't get out of bed.  Is it too big a stretch to believe he could relate to the idea of someone who values and cherishes their loved one very much, but is still looking forward (anticipating) their death? Probably not.

(I should note here: I work in a hospital. I get that this is not the type of thing that happens all the time, but to me...when I've just been talking to people who are old or who have suffered with chronic diseases for a long time and then they get a cancer diagnosis...and it's kind of a relief to them. It's a weird dynamic, but it does happen.)

I'm also gonna assume that Roderick was smart enough to pick up on the pattern to his family tree: I can imagine him going on ancestry.com and going "Hmm...Great-Grandpa had a brother, but he died of consumption. And Dad had a sister...and she died with her firstborn. And I have a sister...O wait..."

So maybe Madeline's death has been something he's been preparing for his whole life. And now she's getting sick again, and he thinks it's the last time. In fact, he's pretty much convinced himself that it is her time to let her go.


(Spoilers below: proceed with caution)







Unfortunately for both of them, she's not dead yet!

AND (not surprisingly) she's none too happy with being buried alive...

What's puzzling to me is that it's pretty clear Roderick realizes his mistake pretty early, or at least suspects it. Why didn't he do anything about it?

One possible answer is that he really wants her to be dead, he's been grieving her loss for a really long time and now he thinks he's ready to move on. So when he hears the raping, tapping and scratching (remember his senses are extremely acute) coming from the family crypt (Yeah, they have one IN THEIR HOUSE!! Perfectly normal apparently...)

Yup...he's in denial.

These are my faces for Roderick:

And Madeline:

(Only they're both really sickly and emaciated...)