...the Soul of Wit - Short Reviews

It's time for my latest reads again, yay!

I felt a little weary of horror in the abiding February darkness and have been reading lots of world literature, books on nature and even one self-help book instead. I was feeling a little guilty that I neglected horror in this time but while writing these reviews I just realized that's not the case at all - luckily I have enough material for my wrap-up. That being said, here they are, I hope you enjoy the short reviews! 

All's Well by Mona Awad

 

Just imagine the most sarcastic, bitter, insufferable but subtly hilarious female lead and then give her excruciating back and knee pains.

Now imagine she is the head of the theater department at university, trying to prepare the production for "All's Well That Ends Well" but the whole world wants to pressure her into staging the Scottish Play.

Add to that anxieties, insecurities, constant whining and fear of mutiny; a loathsome ex-husband; a patronizing physical therapist as well as a mountain of unfulfilled wishes and subtle aggressions - welcome to the world of Miranda Fitch!

But that's not even the worst part, that part begins in a pub where Miranda encounters three Scottish blokes after bending the elbow a little too much and telling them all about her troubles. Miraculously, everything that bothers her starts to smoothen out after that evening; she is magically cured of her pain, all her enemies suffer, the university wants and endorses her to stage All's Well and her secret crush finally makes advances. Yes, all's well but maybe too well? And what's the cost?

This book is so hilarious that it turns to scary after a while. Words aren't enough to express how much I enjoyed reading Miranda and I'm now officially a Mona Awad fan!

 

Rawblood by Catriona Ward

This book is many things; an interesting reverse ghost story, an experimental Gothic story, the debut of horror literature’s shooting star Catriona Ward… It is many things but it is not my book.

Even trying to describe the plot seems like a rather difficult task, in retrospect, but I’ll give my best shot. The story starts with two young friends, Tom Gilmore and Iris Villarca, spending their days on a Gothic property in Dover named Rawblood and owned by Iris’ father Alonso. They’re very close and sweet but feel the impending weight of a curseful illness that runs in the Villarca family.
Their story alternates with a past storyline of scientists Charles Danforth and Alonso Villarca, who try to shed light on the mysterious illness that affects the Villarcas.
Their story, in turn, is interrupted by the background story of Charles’ sister and Alonso’s future wife Meg Danforth, by the adventures of Mary Hopewell and Hepzibah Brigstocke, one of whom is Alonso’s mother, and by the impressions of a nameless soldier.
I guess a gnarled story can have its charm too, and being a lifelong fan of endless telenovelas I’m certainly not averse to complicated family ties. But the characters were really unrelatable and uninteresting for me, especially in the beginning. The really juicy things start happening in the last third, but up until that point the pace is unfortunately frustratingly slow. The crazy arrangement of different timelines and the confusing ending did nothing for me either.
Alas, as much as I loved her latest book, this isn’t it. If you like unconventionally structured slow burners this might be your case, unfortunately, it wasn’t mine.

The Passion According to G.H. by Clarice Lispector

I can’t even begin to know how to review this book...

The Passion According to G.H. is basically about a woman who kills a cockroach in the room of her maid and consequently enters an existential crisis, there, looking at the cockroach and begins to think intensely.

This is the most genius yet also the most foolish book I have yet read. Having almost no plot at all, it is smart but also ridiculous, philosophical but also devoid of meaning, dead serious but also fatuous and ultimately disgusting but cathartic, all at the same time.
Certainly, an impeccably written, remarkable read.

The House of a Hundred Whispers by Graham Masterton 

The House of a Hundred Whispers is a standard haunted house story that also delves into the realm of parallel universes, portals and time traveling. I have to admit I was excited to read my first Graham Masterton but soon was bored by this utterly basic book. Until… the author decided to throw in a completely useless and nonsensical gang rape scene, which did nothing to contribute to either character arcs or even plot development and honestly reads like the sexual fantasies of some horny dude. Masterton just picks one female character that he keeps on describing in sexual ways (and nobody else in the book gets that treatment, mind you) and finally decides to punish her for, well, being the way she is. That’s what you get being a redhead with big breasts in the Masterton universe, because that’s as far his imagination goes. I don't think gang rapes are entertaining and if not used in some extreme horror environment as an element to contribute to plot, social commentary or some clever storyline you maybe should keep your hands off it, ugh. After that it wasn’t even basic for me, it was bad. Don’t even bother with this one, my opinion.

In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado

From the pen of one of the most authentic authors of our age even a memoir can become something special and wondrous - Carmen Maria Machado shows how.

In the Dream House is a memoir about a very painful time in Machado's life, a time she was in a harmful relationship with someone abusive. The titular Dream House stands as a metaphor, a symbol for this relationship and this metaphor is being broken into mini-chapters in which it is examined through the lenses of certain tropes, genres and subgenres like "Dream House as Time Travel", "Dream House as Utopia", "Dream House as High Fantasy" etc, completing piece by little piece and from various angles the puzzle of the Dream House. Talking about various angles, even the points of view are a revelation, a statement in this memoir that add up to a magnificent oeuvre as personal as it is political. I am guessing that this one isn't everybody's cup of tea - I know I had my problems with it. But at the end of the day, this is a memoir written with a once in a lifetime originality and courage. I definitely plan on re-reading it.
 

Red X by David Demchuk

"At least for a while, it was better to be seen as monster than to remain unseen."

Throughout the last few decades the gay village of Toronto, Church and Wellesley, witnesses many a horror: homophobia, HIV, police brutality, indifference of society… But taking a closer look one will see an additional terror, as if these were not enough. A monster that is firmly anchored in Toronto’s history and roots but also in British folklore, a barghest, haunts a group of people that are sometimes loosely sometimes firmly connected to each other over the span of about 40 years. It is up to them to solve the mystery and hopefully stop the killings/disappearances.

This was a ravishing read!  While homophobia effortlessly keeps up with the barghest in terms of trepidation, Demchuk weaves these two components into such uncanny and threatening atmosphere that every scene of additional scare makes you jump out of your seat. And there are many a genuinely scary scenes here, peppered with a couple of fantastic illustrations and I wish there had been more of those.

Each chapter is written for each decade since the 80s and is divided into two parts: the story itself and the author’s own biographical notes. The latter recount how horror has shaped his life in general; the horror connected to homophobia and to the terrible illness that followed him throughout his life, of death of loved ones, of queer representation in the genre and more…

Heartbreaking and frightening, Red X was one of the best reads of the year for me.