The House on the Strand

Virago Modern Classics (the publisher of Women's Literature) has in recent years republished the entire works of Daphne Du Maurier, described by author Sally Beauman as "one of the twentieth centuries most misunderstood and fascinating novelists".

"The House on the Strand" is described on the back cover of its latest reprint as a book "written in the great tradition of Edgar Allan Poe and H P Lovecraft" (see my previous post). However, although a finely crafted page turner, I would suggest it lack's the sense of menace and sheer terror associated with Poe and and Lovecraft's work. This said, the book is still an excellent read, and the characterisation cleverly and poignantly wrought.

It is not without irony that whilst "The House on the Strand" has been re-published by Virago, Du Maurier writes from the first person perspective of her central male character, Dick. Although, on one level, a deeply tragic story, this novel is also genuinely humorous, not least because Dick's drug-induced trips - from which finally he cannot return - bring to this middle aged man some symptoms which many women associate with the so-called "change of life".

However, the changes wrought in Dick's life are rather more dramatic as he journeys back to fourteenth century Cornwall and becomes more and more involved with the lives of the characters from this earlier period, gradually losing touch with present reality.

Like Lovecroft's "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward", Du Maurier's novel is rooted in a particulary powerful sense of place, and it is from this, as much from its characters and story that the sense of dark predestination associated with the best modern Gothic literature derives. As with Lovecroft's work, antiquarian research is also central to the plot of "The House on the Strand", reflecting the shared heritage of both writers.

The Case of Charles Dexter Ward

If I had to choose a book of the year so far, this would be it. Only vaguely aware of the work of author H P Lovecraft, I came upon the "Creation Oneiros" edition of "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" - by chance or design - in Worcester City Library under the "Occult" category. Do not be put off by the introduction, which, although interesting, for me did not really capture the essence of the book.

"The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" tells the story of a young antiquarian and genealogist, who's studies conjure up evil c18th ancestor Joseph Curwen in 1920s New England. The tale is told in little more than a novella, yet it demonstrates very much that narrative quality need not mean quantity : a lesson sadly lost on many contemporary authors. H P Lovecraft wrote in the first part of the 20th century.

Lovecraft's writing ranges from hauntingly beautiful lyrical descriptions of place (of which I have read few finer), to genuinely scary and suspenseful horror, puctuated by passages of quirky detail and sometimes absurd humour. For instance, when the local c18th worthies gather to run down Joseph Curwen (in his earlier incarnation), "President Manning (is) without the great periwig (the largest in the Colonies) for which he was noted..."

"The Case of Charles Dexeter Ward" is a totally engrossing read from beginning to end, and, its conclusion is suitably ambiguous and disturbing.

The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories

Peter Haining's "Mammoth" selection of modern ghost stories has a section entitled "The Ghost Feelers : Modern Gothic Tales". In his Foreword, Haining writes :

" The Gothic Story also returned re-vitalised to address new generations, thanks to the work of an excellent school of female writers, loosely categorised as "Ghost Feelers". At the forefront was the American Edith Wharton, who claimed it was a conscious act rather than a belief to write about the supernatural. "I don't believe in ghosts", she said, "but I'm afraid of them". Even with this reservation, Wharton and others went ahead to create the "new gothic" of claustrophobia, disintegration and terror of the soul, notably Marie Belloc Lowndes, Eudora Welty, Daphne Du Maurier and Jane Gardam".

Of Haining's selection of women writers, it is Daphne Du Maurier who is perhaps the most interesting. As he notes, Du Maurier "has been credited with shifting the Gothic Mode towards romantic fiction" again in her novel "Rebecca" (1938). Her short stories "The Birds" (1952) and "Don't Look Now" (1966) were also both, in Haining's words, "brilliantly filmed". Du Maurier's story of "The Pool" (1959) in this selection is a tale which finely blends modern psychological insights with sometimes dark and otherworldy visions, which draw the reader in as strongly as they do the character of the young woman who beholds them.