Sunday, 13 June 2021

strange_complex: (Lee as M.R. James)
I've got so behind with book reviews that I'm here reviewing a book I read in July last year. It's partly because of an intensive autumn / winter (teaching) and then spring (LibDemmery), but it's also because I got a bit stuck on this particular review, wanting to articulate complex things about the presentation of narrative raised by the stories but just always being too tired every time I opened the file. I still don't think I've done it particularly crisply, but I'll settle for getting at least something posted at this stage.

2021-06-13 20.57.23.jpg

The book in question is a rather random collection of J. Sheridan Le Fanu stories published to tie in with the release of Hammer's The Vampire Lovers in 1970. I bought it probably some time between the ages of about 10 and 14, when I used to comb through baskets of books labelled '10p each' on the floor in charity shops and a farm shop which my Mum often took us to, pulling out anything which looked Gothic horror-related. I recognised Peter Cushing on the cover of this one and knew it should be promising, though I hadn't seen The Vampire Lovers at the time. I remember reading Carmilla back then, and I suppose I read the rest of the stories too, but having forgotten all about them it seemed like time for a re-read. That said, I actually skipped Carmilla itself this time, as I read it on its own relatively recently after going to a theatrical production of it (LJ / DW). So I focused primarily on the other stories this time.

It got me thinking about how stories of the supernatural are framed )

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