Bookish bits and whatnots

Gloomth, gothicks and a Chrimbly book-fort

Photo by Bee Felten-Leidel on Unsplash

Hello friends!

It’s been a minute, has it not? As I wrote last time, November has been a bit full and all of my best-laid plans went out the window along with my spare time. Which is fine. Plans are only ever a guideline and I like to hold these things rather loosely. As such, it’s been a while since I did one of my book (un)review posts. Rather than go through everything I’ve read over the past couple of months, I’ve decided to just generalize and mention a couple of stand-outs. And, as is traditional for me at this time of year, I’ve assembled my festive book-fort — which is to say, the books I’m reading in the lead-up to Christmas. After that, I’ll build my winter book-fort, which will carry me through until spring. The week between Christmas and New Year tends to be very bookish….ah, bliss — books and blankets and far too much chocolate…*sigh* good times.

Anyway. Let’s get on.

Gothtober/vember

I know, Gothvember doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as Gothtober but my timing was terrible and I ended up not getting started with my Gothic book pile until the end of October and thus, it oozed into November. I shall endeavour to time it better next year.

I’m not sure, but I may have invented Gothtober - please correct me if you’ve seen it elsewhere. Already familiar with Victober - the pledge to read Victorian literature in October - I wanted to focus specifically on Gothic fiction and although there’s definitely cross-over there, I didn’t want to limit myself to the Victorian period. You may well ask why this sudden compulsion towards the dark, gloomy and melodramatic? Am I trying to relive my goth-years from adolescence? Having another existential crisis? An antidote to pumpkin spice beverages and cartoon ghosts? To which I can only answer - maybe? Ostensibly, it’s research — I have a faint inkling about writing a Gothic something some day — it’s also simple curiosity and a desire to learn more, to widen my reading horizons. You see, I have this thing where I exist in the exquisite tension of dark and light, despair and hopefulness - and that’s not just poetic fancy, it’s a very real, lived experience of teetering (sometimes precariously) in between. I tend to write towards hopefulness…my books lean that way, though they’re not without their darker undertones…but there’s a part of me that wants to dabble in cosmic horror and tales of darkling things because I believe the two can (and do) co-exist. I suspect that even if I were to do that, I would still orient to hopefulness, but the desire to dwell in the dark for a bit is definitely there. I’m not ashamed of my shadow-dwelling side, but I rarely give it air time. For reasons that I will explain in my next post, I’m going to be exploring those threads of curiosity once again, if only for my own edification.

[I’m dangerously close to a ranting aside here on the insidious messaging of the capitalist hellscape that demands we shove ourselves - and so, our creativity — into tidy little boxes and not to come out - all in service of appeasing algorithms…so I’m going to take a deep breath, scribble down some notes for later and will brb]

…here, have a cosmic horror image…:)

image via www.wallpapercave.co

Anyhoodles…where were we? Ah yes, Gothic fiction.

I have acquired an assortment from this genre over the past year and in the past couple of months I’ve read:

The Monk - Matthew Lewis

The Castle of Otranto - Horace Walpole

O Caledonia - Elspeth Barker

and, a more modern and unexpected version - Starling House - Alix E. Harrow

The two oldest, The Monk and The Castle of Otranto, were exactly as I expected - the themes and motifs therein set the stage for the entire genre to come. The Monk, especially, was considered scandalous in its time and it was easy to see why. That said, it was speaking truths, aloud, that scandalous or not, were very much the reality of that time period. I think that’s perhaps one of the best uses of fiction - to illuminate truths, or possible truths, to say things that everyone is thinking but is too afraid to say, particularly in social and cultural climates that don’t lend themselves well to free speech.

Ahem.

I enjoyed both of them, though they were really quite over the top in parts, especially The Castle of Otranto. I greatly enjoy the Oxford World Classics versions as they’re edited and introduced by Nick Groom and include helpful essays on historical context of both the social and literary times. I intend to continue my scholarship in the year to come and will report back.

O Caledonia was gloriously gutting — it’s like Dodie Smith (I Capture The Castle) meets Shirley Jackson (We Have Always Lived in the Castle) and yes, there is a castle involved. It’s the story of Janet, a truly fabulous character and even though the novel begins with her murder, it only made me more attached to her. At first glance you might think it an odd way to start a story, but it’s genius in that we end up with built-in sorrow for her situation because we already know how it’s going to end. So rather than her being unlikeable or faintly off-putting, she becomes wholly sympathetic. I loved Janet and I really don’t get on well with unlikeable characters as a rule, so that should tell you something about the skill of the author.

It truly is a brilliant book - so incredibly evocative in how the language conjures the mood, the scenery, the entire tone of the story; strangely beautiful and utterly compelling. Can definitely recommend it if you enjoyed either of the two books I mentioned above, or if you like underdog characters and stark backdrops.

Speaking of which…

Starling House was one of those books that left me in absolute awe of the writer’s craft. Once again, exquisite atmospheric writing where, in true Gothic style, the setting is a character in its own right. It’s full of lush, metaphorical descriptions that bring the surroundings to (literal) life, compelling characterization and plot…really quite mesmerizing.

I forced myself to read it slowly - because I really wanted to gobble it up - so that I could savour the experience. It’s technically an adult book (the MC is 26 years old) but it reminded me a lot of the YA books of old with deep, complex characters and a slow-burn romance in a semi-fantastical setting. I loved everything about it. Once again, Opal (the female lead) is theoretically unlikeable but it’s the kind of unlikeable you can’t help but like because you can empathize with her motivations and you really just want her to have everything she wishes for. The same could be said of Arthur (the male lead), though he’s less unlikeable, but only because he’s clearly tortured.

As a slightly snarky aside - I feel like there are a number of authors of popular romantasy books who would do well to study how Ms. Harrow has skillfully created emotionally damaged characters, especially of the brooding male variety, without resorting to two-dimensional prototypes that end up being completely contemptible or else make instantaneous reversals that make no sense whatsoever.

Ahem.

Anyway - a great book, can highly recommend if you fancy something in a southern Gothic.

Right, onwards from the gloomth…

Here’s my current Chrimbly book-fort.

I’m also listening to an audiobook of the festive cozy mystery variety — The Hour of Death by Jane Willan, which is set in a Welsh village and has a sleuthing nun. Need I say more?

I might add more to the pile if I get through these too quickly - which I probably will - some Miss Read, perhaps? A couple of these are re-reads - Winter Solstice is one I return to fairly regularly at this time of year though this is the first year in about three that I’ve felt drawn to re-read it, but comfort and familiarity are key ingredients in a Chrimbly book-fort. 🎄

Right…that’s it for now.

Let me know if you build a festive book-fort…or whatever else you’ve been reading. I’ll return to regularly scheduled bookish posts in the new year - there are a couple of other good ‘uns that I’ve recently read and would like to natter at you about!

until next time,

~m. xo

ps. I FINISHED WAR & PEACE!! (I finished it in early October but kept forgetting to mention it.) It was fine. I’m glad I read it. 😬. I think I’ll try Anna Karenina next year.