Frankenstein – Mary Shelley
I’m certainly not the first person to say this, but Frankenstein reads almost as more of a tragedy than a horror novel. You really feel bad for the Monster as you see all the terrible things he goes through. Sure, it’s a scary story, but the novel raises a very cool question. Who is the real monster – Victor Frankenstein, or the creature he makes? I’d definitely recommend this book. It was fun, a bit spooky, and very interesting.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow – Washington Irving
If you’re looking for a short read on a mildly spooky October evening, this is the perfect story. Sleepy Hollow definitely didn’t take me more than an hour to get through – I read it in short 5-15 minute bursts just before bed these past few autumn evenings. It paints a wonderful picture of a late 18th century small town in America right at harvesttime. The author talks about the ears of corn hung up for decoration, apples being roasted for nice big dinners, beautiful roaring fireplaces, and cloudy evenings over trees with naked branches. Oh yeah, and a Headless Horseman with a jack-o-lantern under his arm. In short, it’s the perfect Halloween story.
What’s great about this story is how it walks the line between ‘genuinely spooky’ and ‘lighthearted fun’. Is the headless horseman truly a horrific apparition of a bloody conflict long since past, or is some part of the object of Ichabod Crane’s terror simply the result of an over-imaginative mind? The answer, I think, is fairly obvious by the end of the book, but I found the author’s refusal to give us a definitive answer playful and even a bit tongue-in-cheek. But whether he’s real or not, the Headless Horseman is a figure that’s managed to stand the test of time. The Horseman is actually much older than this 1820 short story – the 14th century knight story Sir Gawain and the Green Knight gives us a very similar figure, and it’s possible that the legend goes back even further. To have a mythological figure pop up multiple times throughout history is nothing new – think of all the various incarnations of zombies and vampires that have existed over the past thousand years. What’s a bit surprising is how this figure hasn’t taken off to the extent that those other examples have. As fun as this short story was, perhaps we don’t yet have the definitive Headless Horseman tale that will rocket this rider into the pantheon of classic horror monsters like werewolves, mummies, and Transylvanian vampires. But then again, maybe I’m out to lunch a little bit – after all, I really enjoyed this quick read and wouldn’t change a thing about it. Give this story a shot!
Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – Robert Louis Stevenson
It’s a shame that I already knew the twist before I got to that point in the book, because much of the book’s fun is trying to solve the mystery. This book is a short read so if you’re looking for a quick Halloween-themed read, this isn’t a half-bad idea (see what I did there?). My favourite part was the final chapter where you figure everything out but you also figure out the motive and process behind Dr. Jekyll’s transformations. It was almost like a sermon on the effect of habitual sin or addiction. That part was really cool.
I had to look forever to find a hardcover version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It’s a short story so you’ll generally find it in paperback. I finally found a hardcover at Chapters, but this version that I picked up at Barnes and Noble looked way cooler so it’s the one I stuck with.
Tales of Terror – H. P. Lovecraft
So one day I was sitting at home, minding my own business, when my brother walks in and tells me about this creature he heard about called Cthulhu. The name alone was enough to pique my interest – how do you say Cthulhu? Why is it spelled so weird? Is it “Ka-thoo-loo” or is the C silent? What about that second H?
I looked up this creature and the images that popped up blew my mind. I’ve always been afraid of the deepest parts of the ocean. It’s so far down that sunlight can’t reach it. The pressure is so great, a human would be flattened like a pancake. And yet there are creatures that live down there with great bulbous eyes, razor-thin teeth, and fluorescent body parts. It’s a weird and unholy place down there. If I was ever down there and I came up against some sort of monstrosity, I would be utterly helpless. You can’t swim away because they’re all way faster than you. You can’t scream because you can’t breathe in the first place. All you can do is watch as a tentacle wraps itself around your leg and pulls you towards a black, gaping beak. Oh yeah – giant squids have beaks. How messed up is that?! What a terrible, terrible way to go. It’s my worst nightmare. It’s the fear of drowning, claustrophobia, and being eaten – all at once.
Needless to say, Cthulhu seemed like the absolute personification of my greatest fear. Cthulhu is a monstrous being that exists in the realm between the physical and the supernatural. He’s got a squid-face, dragon wings, arms, legs, and eyes that would suck the soul right out of your body if you ever looked him in the eye. He’s a truly mythical creation. So that day as I looked at the horrific depictions online of the creature, I knew that some day I’d have to read the story that introduced him to the world.
Unfortunately, I was fairly disappointed. The collection of Lovecraftian tales that I purchased had 9 different stories within. I read 5 of them before giving up: Dagon, Herbert West – Reanimator, The Call of Cthulhu, The Dunwich Horror, and The Whisperer in Darkness. Dagon wasn’t so bad. It was a short read, and it did a good job of quickly setting the stage for a thoroughly weird horror story. The Call of Cthulhu was also interesting enough to keep me going. I liked how the narrative followed a man trying to piece things together in his study of this ‘Cthulhu Cult’. But for the rest of the stories, it just seemed so obvious to me how much the author was padding his narratives. His writing is jargonous – and by that I mean to give a precise example of how he wrote. ‘Jargon’ basically means ‘too wordy’, and ‘jargonous’ is a made-up extension of that word. Most of his writing is like that. He packs all these dense words in when he could just as easily use simpler language. I’m all for using the English language to the fullest, but when you’re using a fancy word, it should make things clearer for the reader. More often than not, Lovecraft’s writing serves only to confuse me – and his stories are already about confusing and weird subjects.
And man, you would not believe how much he drags things out. Evidently these stories were published in chunks for a magazine. So for Herbert West – Reanimator, each chapter begins with a lengthy summary of what I just read five minutes ago. Honestly, I must have read six times how one character has blue eyes. Who cares? Just get to the point. Either write a new story for each issue, or trust your readers enough to remember important plot points. For The Whisperer In Darkness, a guy corresponds with another guy through letters. The second guy is scared of aliens in the woods. First of all, there’s nothing scary to me about aliens, partly because I don’t believe in them. I suppose fear of a sea monster like Cthulhu is just as irrational, but hey, at least we’ve seen weird deep-sea animals. Secondly, these two guys correspond back and forth over and over again, and each time you think something is exciting is going to happen. Nothing exciting ever happens. At one point the first guy makes the drive down to the woods to find the other guy, and there’s a whole chapter where he’s just driving. I don’t care about the driving! Put this guy in front of some aliens already!
I don’t like walking away from books before I’ve finished them, but it’s October 5th and I have plenty of other horror stories on my shelf to read before the Christmas season rolls around. In short, I love Lovecraft’s monsters – and his shared narrative universe is kind of interesting – but on the whole, it’s his style of writing that pushed me away. Sorry, Cthulhu. Your author is as convoluted as your name.
The Screwtape Letters – C. S. Lewis
At the time of writing this, I haven’t actually read this book – instead, I listened to a dramatized audio version several years ago starring Andy Serkis (Gollum from Lord of the Rings among other major roles he’s played) as Screwtape. I was really impressed by this book through that performance. Each chapter is sort of like a “reverse sermon” – you hear about tactics the enemy uses to pull you away from God, and are thus inspired to watch out for and guard yourself against those tactics. My siblings, mother and I listened to this on the way to Disneyworld for Christmas in 2014, and I was consistently blown away by the insight that Lewis provided. His perspective on how spiritual warfare takes place was surprisingly simple – and yet still mind-boggling. I’d highly recommend this book. It’s argumentative in the sense that you learn a lot from reading it, but it’s also entertainment in the sense that learning a lesson “from the other side” is so uncommon, it ends up funny, exciting, and eye-opening all at once.
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