The Turn of the Screw by Henry James My rating: 4 of 5 stars How did this 1898 novella become modern and postmodern literary theory's most inscrutable touchstone? According to Henry James's Notebooks—and scholars have disputed this, but then they dispute everything, as we'll see—he got the kernel of the novella, a ghost story, from … Continue reading Henry James, The Turn of the Screw
Tag: horror
Dracula by Bram Stoker My rating: 4 of 5 stars Though "undiscovered" and "forgotten" works are thrust at us from every corner, I find that the most startling books are often the most famous, the most classic. Supposedly so well known they no longer merit study—we might as well throw them in the trash—they are … Continue reading Bram Stoker, Dracula
Providence Act 1 by Alan Moore My rating: 4 of 5 stars It is with hesitation that I write anything about Providence. This recent three-volume graphic novel—a prequel/sequel to the earlier works, The Courtyard and Neonomicon—represents Alan Moore's meticulously-researched and carefully-arranged synthesis of H. P. Lovecraft's mythos, whereas I am only the most casual reader … Continue reading Alan Moore and Jacen Burrows, Providence
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole My rating: 3 of 5 stars Published pseudonymously in 1764 by an English politician, The Castle of Otranto is usually praised as the first Gothic novel. It not only set off a craze for novels about haunted castles and abbeys, about predatory dukes and scheming monks and fainting … Continue reading Horace Walpole, The Castle of Otranto
The Invisibles by Grant Morrison My rating: 4 of 5 stars This will be a pitch. You should read The Invisibles. Certainly those of you who have been reading some of the other things I write about here: not only Alan Moore, but also Herman Melville, James Joyce, Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, and Grant's alt-universe … Continue reading Grant Morrison, The Invisibles
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle My rating: 3 of 5 stars Today, in honor of Halloween, the Paris Review is running an 1872 epistolary exchange between Bram Stoker and Walt Whitman. Sympathy between the authors of Leaves of Grass and Dracula is not as incongruous as it seems, given certain obvious sociopolitical realities—it makes … Continue reading Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft My rating: 4 of 5 stars Having read The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, what choice did I have in this Halloween season but to go on to the twentieth-century sequel to Poe's only novel, namely, one of H. P. Lovecraft's only novels, At the Mountains of … Continue reading H. P. Lovecraft, At the Mountains of Madness
The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket by Edgar Allan Poe My rating: 3 of 5 stars Calm block fallen down here from some dark disaster —Stéphane Mallarmé, "The Tomb of Edgar Poe" Edgar Allan Poe must have the strangest legacy in modern literature: he invented both pulp fiction and the literary avant-garde. While … Continue reading Edgar Allan Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket
Nameless by Grant Morrison My rating: 3 of 5 stars But did Grant Morrison deserve my bitchy crack about Coldplay toward the end of my review of Greg Carpenter's British Invasion? After being too pleased with myself for its cleverness, it occurred to me that I had not read a Morrison comic all the way … Continue reading Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham, Nameless
Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury My rating: 3 of 5 stars Read on the occasion of Halloween. I enjoyed Bradbury in my youth and surprisingly loved his short stories when I decided to take an adult look at them after his death. His stories, it seems to me, merit Borges's praise of … Continue reading Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes
