School is ending, summer vacation about to begin. This was always my favorite time of the year to relax with a sprawling Victorian-era novel, or better yet, a Victorian-era ghost story. Even though I'm no longer on a school schedule, my urge for that slowly unwinding, creepy tale remains. Fortunately Sarah Waters anticipated my need and published The Little Stranger on April 30, 2009.
It is one thing to read Jane Eyre, The Wyvern Mystery, or Dracula for a dose of Victorian-era gothic, but why would anyone want to read a Victorian-era ghost story published about a month before Apple announced the iPhone 3GS? The answer is that Sarah Waters writes with a modern perspective on the death of the Victorian era, and The Little Stranger is a love letter to the now extinct gothic novel.
Waters speaks to the modern reader's nostalgia for Victorian-era gothic by touching her hat to the conventions of these tales. Her protagonist is a family doctor, a man of science, reason, and compassion. Her setting is a magnificent, but crumbling, haunted house. The haunted descend into very Victorian-style madness. And, of course, there is plenty of unspoken sexual tension. With her established conventions creating a backdrop of nostalgia, Waters then writes about the decline of the Victorian era, the end of a way of life that brought us the Brontës, Le Fanu, Stoker. Her protagonist doctor is concerned about the end of his way of life, as events in the story take place on the eve of establishing nationalized health care in England. Her haunted manor house is crumbling a little more than necessary for traditional gothic ambiance. In fact, Hundreds Hall had been partially stripped and ravaged to house soldiers during the war. The family are struggling to hold onto the house, and selling off great tracts of surrounding land to pay the bills. And because the government won't pay for public utilities to run to its farm, even the dairy is failing. So of course the family, the haunted, are fading aristocrats, people with land and title living miserable, deprived, and desperate lives. The modern world has passed them by, and they are struggling, isolated and alone, knowing that one day their property will be converted into a smart new housing development. As for the sexual tension, even that takes an unconventional turn.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Little Stranger. It's a totally satisfying ghost story, tipping its hat to convention, then going beyond convention to describe an interesting historical transition that ended the age of one of my favorite genres. I also appreciated the way Waters treated the mystery of the ghost. Waters gives her own firm opinion on the strange events at Hundreds Hall, but leaves the reader to connect the dots, and even leaves a little space for the reader to come to his or her own conclusion.
On Amazon The Little Stranger is #144 in Books and #14 in genre fiction. It is #145 in the Kindle Store.
It is one thing to read Jane Eyre, The Wyvern Mystery, or Dracula for a dose of Victorian-era gothic, but why would anyone want to read a Victorian-era ghost story published about a month before Apple announced the iPhone 3GS? The answer is that Sarah Waters writes with a modern perspective on the death of the Victorian era, and The Little Stranger is a love letter to the now extinct gothic novel.
Waters speaks to the modern reader's nostalgia for Victorian-era gothic by touching her hat to the conventions of these tales. Her protagonist is a family doctor, a man of science, reason, and compassion. Her setting is a magnificent, but crumbling, haunted house. The haunted descend into very Victorian-style madness. And, of course, there is plenty of unspoken sexual tension. With her established conventions creating a backdrop of nostalgia, Waters then writes about the decline of the Victorian era, the end of a way of life that brought us the Brontës, Le Fanu, Stoker. Her protagonist doctor is concerned about the end of his way of life, as events in the story take place on the eve of establishing nationalized health care in England. Her haunted manor house is crumbling a little more than necessary for traditional gothic ambiance. In fact, Hundreds Hall had been partially stripped and ravaged to house soldiers during the war. The family are struggling to hold onto the house, and selling off great tracts of surrounding land to pay the bills. And because the government won't pay for public utilities to run to its farm, even the dairy is failing. So of course the family, the haunted, are fading aristocrats, people with land and title living miserable, deprived, and desperate lives. The modern world has passed them by, and they are struggling, isolated and alone, knowing that one day their property will be converted into a smart new housing development. As for the sexual tension, even that takes an unconventional turn.
I thoroughly enjoyed The Little Stranger. It's a totally satisfying ghost story, tipping its hat to convention, then going beyond convention to describe an interesting historical transition that ended the age of one of my favorite genres. I also appreciated the way Waters treated the mystery of the ghost. Waters gives her own firm opinion on the strange events at Hundreds Hall, but leaves the reader to connect the dots, and even leaves a little space for the reader to come to his or her own conclusion.
On Amazon The Little Stranger is #144 in Books and #14 in genre fiction. It is #145 in the Kindle Store.
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