Current gothic obsession
Jul. 9th, 2006 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylFor some mysterious reason, I've suddenly developed a bizarre craving for classic gothic novels. Since Thursday, I've read (or re-read):
The Castle of Otranto: the heir to the fiefdom of Otranto is crushed by a giant helmet on the day of his wedding. His father, Manfred, decides to ditch his wife Hippolita in favour of the woman his son was due to marry. There are various absurd shenanigans with a peasant called Theodore, a group of knights appears, Manfred gets very cross with various people and tries to set up a whole raft of dodgy marriages. After the intervention of a giant ghostly version of the last legitimate Prince of Otranto, the identity of the true heir is revealed.
Carmilla: after a carriage crash which just happens to occur in front of her father's schloss, Laura finds herself a new friend in the languid form of Carmilla, a girl who looks exactly like someone Laura saw in a dream when she was ten. Carmilla's mother dumps her daughter rather abruptly before vanishing, the local peasants start to die at an alarming rate and it is found that Carmilla bears a striking resemblance to a historic portrait of a dead local aristo called Mircalla Karnstein. After something which reads like a thinly disguised lesbian pash, Laura and he father eventually connect the dots, decide that perhaps Carmilla isn't all sweetness and light and schedule an appointment with a sharpened piece of wood.
Uncle Silas: Maud Ruthyn has a rough time of it, putting up with strange relatives, an alcoholic governess, various attempts to abduct her, various dark references to her estranged Uncle Silas and his possible involvement with a murder many years before. Maud's father eventually dies and she is packed off to Silas at his house, Bartram-Haugh, there to be his ward. After generally mooching off Maud's allowance, preventing her from seeing her cousin and the executor, Silas send her off to France for you-know-what. Fortunately, thanks to reappearance of the hated dipsomaniacal governess, Silas' plans are thwarted and all ends happily for Maud and friends.
The Woman in White: Laura is happily living with her feckless uncle, falling in love with Walter the drawing teacher, stuff like that, when her uncle marries her off to the scheming Sir Percival Glyde. Laura and her mustachioed half sister Marion are packed off to Sir Percival's estate, where they live with Count and his friend, the sinister Count Fosco, while Walter goes off abroad for a while. Sir Percival and the Count come up with an elaborate scheme involving a doppelganger and a lunatic asylum, in order to get their hands on Laura's money. Walter reappears and after learning that Laura isn't quite as dead as he thought, he and Marion turn up various dark facts about Sir Percival and the Count, which they then use to confound their nefarious schemes in the most terminal of fashions.
The Vampyre: A young man called Aubrey meets a Byronic socialite called Lord Ruthven and two head off on a grand tour of Europe. Aubrey learns that Ruthven has left a bad reputation behind him in London and decides on a parting of the ways. In Greece, Aubrey falls in love with a girl called Ianthe, who tells him a nursery tale of a creature called a vampyre, something that seems very strongly to resemble Ruthven. After Ianthe is killed in a strange town, Aubrey picks up an illness and finds Ruthven waiting for him on his recovery. They continue on their journey only for Ruthven to be shot in a robbery. The dying aristo persuades Aubrey to agree to cover up the death for year and a day, whereupon Aubrey heads back to England where his sister promptly takes up with a mysterious earl. After discovering that the Earl is none other than Ruthven, Aubrey collapses and, too late, divulges the story of the vampyre to his guardians.
I now have to decide whether I can be bothered to read Mrs Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, or whether I should move on to War and Peace — the new Penguin translation is supposed to be very good.
The Castle of Otranto: the heir to the fiefdom of Otranto is crushed by a giant helmet on the day of his wedding. His father, Manfred, decides to ditch his wife Hippolita in favour of the woman his son was due to marry. There are various absurd shenanigans with a peasant called Theodore, a group of knights appears, Manfred gets very cross with various people and tries to set up a whole raft of dodgy marriages. After the intervention of a giant ghostly version of the last legitimate Prince of Otranto, the identity of the true heir is revealed.
Carmilla: after a carriage crash which just happens to occur in front of her father's schloss, Laura finds herself a new friend in the languid form of Carmilla, a girl who looks exactly like someone Laura saw in a dream when she was ten. Carmilla's mother dumps her daughter rather abruptly before vanishing, the local peasants start to die at an alarming rate and it is found that Carmilla bears a striking resemblance to a historic portrait of a dead local aristo called Mircalla Karnstein. After something which reads like a thinly disguised lesbian pash, Laura and he father eventually connect the dots, decide that perhaps Carmilla isn't all sweetness and light and schedule an appointment with a sharpened piece of wood.
Uncle Silas: Maud Ruthyn has a rough time of it, putting up with strange relatives, an alcoholic governess, various attempts to abduct her, various dark references to her estranged Uncle Silas and his possible involvement with a murder many years before. Maud's father eventually dies and she is packed off to Silas at his house, Bartram-Haugh, there to be his ward. After generally mooching off Maud's allowance, preventing her from seeing her cousin and the executor, Silas send her off to France for you-know-what. Fortunately, thanks to reappearance of the hated dipsomaniacal governess, Silas' plans are thwarted and all ends happily for Maud and friends.
The Woman in White: Laura is happily living with her feckless uncle, falling in love with Walter the drawing teacher, stuff like that, when her uncle marries her off to the scheming Sir Percival Glyde. Laura and her mustachioed half sister Marion are packed off to Sir Percival's estate, where they live with Count and his friend, the sinister Count Fosco, while Walter goes off abroad for a while. Sir Percival and the Count come up with an elaborate scheme involving a doppelganger and a lunatic asylum, in order to get their hands on Laura's money. Walter reappears and after learning that Laura isn't quite as dead as he thought, he and Marion turn up various dark facts about Sir Percival and the Count, which they then use to confound their nefarious schemes in the most terminal of fashions.
The Vampyre: A young man called Aubrey meets a Byronic socialite called Lord Ruthven and two head off on a grand tour of Europe. Aubrey learns that Ruthven has left a bad reputation behind him in London and decides on a parting of the ways. In Greece, Aubrey falls in love with a girl called Ianthe, who tells him a nursery tale of a creature called a vampyre, something that seems very strongly to resemble Ruthven. After Ianthe is killed in a strange town, Aubrey picks up an illness and finds Ruthven waiting for him on his recovery. They continue on their journey only for Ruthven to be shot in a robbery. The dying aristo persuades Aubrey to agree to cover up the death for year and a day, whereupon Aubrey heads back to England where his sister promptly takes up with a mysterious earl. After discovering that the Earl is none other than Ruthven, Aubrey collapses and, too late, divulges the story of the vampyre to his guardians.
I now have to decide whether I can be bothered to read Mrs Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho, or whether I should move on to War and Peace — the new Penguin translation is supposed to be very good.
