A Short Essay on Fairytale Retellings

There's been a resurgence of mythos retellings over the years. From oral lore turning into stories like those of The Brother Grimm or Hans Christian Anderson, to modern-day novels spun from the research of other cultures, all of these tales draw in readers. But whereas in the past these types of books have focused mainly on retellings of European myths, such as Greek, Roman, or Norse lore, some stories in recent years have taken a turn into less commonly known folktales. Two such books come to mind, both inspired by Russian myth: The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden and Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik. Both books draw from classic fairytales. The Bear and the Nightingale uses the plot from its original sources, making it a "retelling", and Spinning Silver takes the morals from its sources, making it "inspired by".

Before we can delve into how these books use the fairytales they are based on, we must first define the parameters of fairytale retellings. To do this, we go to New York Times bestselling children’s book author MarcyKate Connolly, who distinguishes retellings from books that draw inspiration from lore. She explains that, “the most critical part, in my experience, is finding just the right combination of the familiar tale and your own original story” (Connolly). Authors must decide if they want to do a "proper" retelling or just have it inspired by the tale. For a "proper" retelling, the plot points and characters in the original will often match up to an authors own story. If they only pull inspiration from the fairytale, it's more likely the themes, motifs, and morals will be present instead.

Spinning Silver uses the characters and morals behind the tale Rumpelstiltskin, but doesn't stick to the format of the original tale, making it inspired by—not a retelling of—that myth. There are many versions of Rumpelstiltskin, but the most well-known is by The Brothers Grimm. There are several common details that appear in almost all versions of this story though. The first is a girl from a poor family (generally a miller's daughter). She's wedded to a wealthy man because of a lie someone told him about her accomplishing great feats (generally spinning straw or skeins, often into gold). The second commonality is an imp or demon aiding her. The third is the repetition of the number three (three times she must spin gold, three times she tries to guess the creature’s name). The last is the creature, Rumpelstiltskin, gloating and revealing his name so he loses his bargain.

These similarities to the original play in greatly to the importance of deals within Spinning Silver, because the point of the story is a girl accomplishing a deal her parents made so they aren't killed, making bargains with Rumpelstiltskin himself, and eventually getting out of those bargains. That could be why the Staryk king in Spinning Silver is so firm about no debts. The parallel with Rumpelstiltskin also explains why Miryem and Irina make deals in many different forms. An example would be Miryem turning silver into gold three times, where the Staryk king himself reiterates the rule of three by saying, “A power claimed and challenged and thrice carried out is true; the proving makes it so” (Novik, 106). The heroine in the original Rumpelstiltskin tale is forced into three deals: one of marriage versus death, one of giving away her firstborn versus no gold straw, and one of guessing a name versus losing her child.

The girls in Spinning Silver are all different forms of the heroine from the original story, all different parts of her. Wanda is the miller’s daughter who is hungry and eats pies from the version of Rumpelstiltskin called Tim Tit Tom, yet she's not the one who can turn things to gold. Irina is the one forced into a marriage she didn’t ask for. Miryem is trying to not lose what she holds dear, such as her self respect. We even see the deal with the imp aka the Staryk king, but instead of the heroine getting out of the deal by learning his name to keep her firstborn child, the Staryk king himself is the one trying to protect those he cares about by nobly trying to keep his people from melting. All these parallels show the morals behind the source fairytale, but spin it in a new way, focusing on the themes rather than plot. They reference the classic, but instead of recreating it, the author takes the tale in her own direction.

The Bear and the Nightingale keeps to the main plot points of Vasilisa the Beautiful and Father Frost, but refreshes the old myths with new twists. From Vasilisa the Beautiful, Arden retains the protagonist’s name, as well as many of the characters’ arcs. In the original tale, Vasilia’s mother dies at a young age and her father remarries a stepmother who dislikes her. This aligns with the tale of Vasya in The Bear and the Nightingale.

But after this, we start getting changes from the original tale. Instead of the stepmother sending Vasilisa into the forest to die by the hands of Baba Yaga, Anna hatches a plan to send her away by convincing the village that she's a witch. Vasya escapes into the forest of her own choice. Instead of misfortune befalling the stepmother when Vasilisa returns, Anna is killed by Medved, the stand-in for Baba Yaga as the demon who eats people.

We also get other lore popping up in smaller form through the environment of the stories. In The Bear and the Nightingale, we learn about creatures common to Russian folklore through the household and nature spirits, such as the domovoi who cleans, mends, and lives in the oven. We see something similar in Spinning Silver, where we meet Chernobog the fire demon. Both retellings give us insight into the lore and creatures outside of the chosen set of fairytales, yet they depict very different representations of those creatures. The domovoi shows the warming of fire, how it can heat a house and cook food for a family, whereas Chernobog shows how fire burns, destroys, and consumes. Both books manage to spin these creatures into an interesting point of view that is dependent on the unreliable narrator. Vasya from The Bear and the Nightingale has seen magic her whole life and kindly asks the rusalka to not hurt people, yet Wanda only sees the destructive nature of the Staryks because they attack her brother when he poaches one of their white animals. These contrasts are present in Spinning Silver too, like Miryem and Irina each with a supernatural husband causing issues, but defending their husbands to one another despite neither wanting to be married.

Both Spinning Silver and The Bear and the Nightingale allude to the Russian myth of Father Frost, but in very different ways. In The Bear and the Nightingale, we get plot points and descriptions that line up directly with the original folktale. Vasya ends up in the forest and is saved by Father Frost (Morozko), whose “voice was like snow at midnight” (Arden, 21). Her step-mother dislikes her and tries to get her killed, and then in the end pays for it by a life being lost, though in The Bear and the Nightingale it's the step-mother who dies rather than the daughter.

In Spinning Silver, we get the morals behind the tale being played upon rather than the plot itself. Wealth surrounds Miryem after her contact with Father Frost (the Staryk king). But then she's wed to him, which doesn't happen in the original tale. Rather than the step mother being selfish and losing a child, we get morals of greed and honor. In this way, The Bear and the Nightingale is closer to a retelling of Father Frost than Spinning Silver is, though both novels have elements from the myth.

However, neither The Bear and the Nightingale or Spinning Silver are retellings of their source fairytales as defined by Connolly. She defined a proper retelling as including, “the major plot points and characters” and stories merely inspired by folktales as being focused on, “themes, motifs, character archetypes, and plot points” (Connolly). While The Bear and the Nightingale does play upon the major plot points and characters of both fairytales it references, it doesn't stick to either one of the tales exactly. Instead, the novel falls more into the category of a story that follows new plot points and character archetypes. Spinning Silver retains the original themes and motifs more. Neither book is a proper retelling, especially considering each contains multiple myths, and is unable to mirror any single source story without deviating from the other.

Both forms of using fairytales as source material for writing have pros and cons. A lot of people grew up with classic fairytales. There are hundreds of versions of just one tale to draw from across multiple cultures, like Cinderella for example. These tales survived the passage of time for a reason, and even now, in an age less reliant on oral tradition, we find new ways to pass these same stories along because of how strongly they resonate with people. Novik and Arden have done just that, and with tales less commonly known but now beloved thanks to them.

 

 

Works Cited

Afanasyev, Alexander. “Baba-Yaga and Vasilisa the Fair.” Myths and Legends, myths.e2bn.org/mythsandlegends/textonly117-baba-yaga-and-vasilisa-the-fair.html.

Afanasyev, Alexander. “Father Frost.” Russian Crafts, russian-crafts.com/russian-folk-tales/father-frost-tale.html.

Arden, Katherine. The Bear and the Nightingale. Del Rey, 2019.

Connolly, MarcyKate. “Retelling Fairy Tales.” Retelling Fairy Tales, www.writersandartists.co.uk/writers/advice/1221/dedicated-genre-advice/writing-for-children/.

Dhwty. “A Freaky Fairy Tale of Ancient Folklore: Vasilisa the Beautiful and Baba Yaga.” Ancient Origins, Ancient Origins, 3 Feb. 2018, http://www.ancient-origins.net/myths-legends-europe/freaky-fairy-tale-ancient-folklore-vasilisa-beautiful-and-baba-yaga-009545.

Grimm. “Rumpelstiltskin - A Tale by the Brothers Grimm.” RSS, 7 Feb. 2020, www.pookpress.co.uk/rumpelstiltskin-brothers-grimm/.

Novik, Naomi. Spinning Silver. Pan Books Ltd, 2019.

Ghost-bust or not? (Ghostbusters movie reviews 1984 AND 2016)

 

Ghostbusters (1984 & 2016)

Let me set the mood with this fun remix of the Ghostbusters theme!

These two movies were a really fun way to go out of this term, but probably not for the reasons you think. I got to show my fiancé Ghostbusters (1984) for the first time, and while he said he would rather watch a newer movie like Insidious, he did enjoy the comedy. Then, I convinced a friend of mine who has never seen that original Ghostbusters to watch the newer 2016 movie without context of the original. It was a blast to hear her commentary not knowing anything about the previous one other than they ‘hunt ghosts’.

It’s hard to evaluate these movies without comparing them, so I’m not going to avoid it. It’s clear why the 2016 version was considered a box office flop. It lost a lot of money, and even though it was received well by critics, audiences and avid Ghostbusters fans didn’t care for it. But why, or more specifically, why do I agree?

Let’s talk about 1984 (the movie, not that book by Orwell that was terrible and unrelated to this). This movie was a change of pace for our class on hauntings. Most media we interacted with this term was meant to be horror, to scare or make you uncomfortable, whereas this movie was mixed genre of paranormal fantasy and sci-fi that was a comedy. It was a lovely change of pace honestly. I’ve always adored this movie ever since I first saw it with my dad one day I was home sick from middle school. Let me tell you, chicken soup came out my nose. As an adult, I can see some flaws, like some of the ‘manly’ humor that would be considered more harassment nowadays, but that doesn’t ruin the movie for me, only dates it.

But then we have the 2016 movie, an all woman cast. Here’s my two cents from the get go: in comparison, it falls flat, but as a standalone film, it was interesting. To elaborate on that, we get nice special effects and female representation and empowerment in this movie. There’s a similar type of humor to the original movie along with several nice call-backs to the first film in references to previous ghosts and special appearances by previous cast members. But that makes the movie okay if it was a ghost movie. But it’s a Ghostbusters movie, supposedly a remake. Yet, the plot is very different, and honestly worse. There are well-known actors cast in the movie just for the sake of the stars' names on the movie cover (I’m talking about the unneeded receptionist Thor). My friend who watched it without context said it was funny, but too confusing and fast paced because she didn’t know the references.

Overall: I’m glad I can form my own opinion and not just trust the masses on the quality of a film, but the new Ghostbusters did not stand up to the hype. You can’t beat the classic.

P.s. There's a remastered ghostbusters game my friend recently played that looked fun if that's up your alley!

The Lead Up To An Exorcism (The Exorcist book review)

 

The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty

This book is brought to you by the letter ‘w’, as in ‘weird’ and ‘what the hell’.

I would’ve pegged this book initially as a thriller or suspense or mystery after reading the beginning. There’s turmoil for the main character between juggling her job, her friends, her employees, and a daughter. The story is compelling and immediately pulled me in. Then, from left field, the daughter is urinating on the floor. Return to motherly concern and educated doctors, then suddenly her kid is swearing and masturbating. A detective, employee backstories, a priest’s life, and then daughter fucking herself with a crucifix. This book going from 0 to 100 gave me whiplash. That being said, I had no question on the genre once I got to these later scenes with Regan.

Note: I actually was streaming listening to this with some friends, and one of them joined right before the masturbation scene and later remarked, ‘Why do I always come in when the cursed shit happens?’ Poor unsuspecting boy.

Now, I knew vaguely of the premise of The Exorcist, but I have not seen the movie and don’t know anything about the case it’s based on. (Yes, Alexis, I do live under a log aka pine trees.) This let me go into the book with blind eyes, which I think honestly was a good thing. I didn’t have any expectation to see a ton of Pazuzu, so the lead in of seeing only glimpses through Regan was good build up.

Honestly, much like The Exorcism of Emily Rose, the story wasn’t really about the exorcism. We get the demonic symptoms and back and forth between contemplating mental illness or not. But only when we reach Part III do we finally get confirmation of the priest looking for evidence to get approval for an exorcism (not even the exorcism itself). I thought the book was much more like Emily Rose in its focus on mental illness versus paranormal/religious influence as seen through the point-of-view of the mother and the priest. Let it be noted that when Karras did the trick with saying he had holy water and it was just from the tap, I not only called that would happen, but I adored that it happened. But Karl was my favorite character. Honestly, the side characters were much more interesting to me than the demons and Regan.

Honestly, pacing and vulgarity were my only criticisms in this book, and the vulgarity was a personal preference that I think did exactly what the author intended in writing in the horror genre. It made me uncomfortable. It got an emotional reaction out of me. So good on Blatty. That aside, I did enjoy this book. It was certainly a weird one, something I normally wouldn’t pick up on my own, but it did linger in my mind after finishing it.

Overall: It was an interesting book and I’m definitely going to give the movie a watch to compare the two.

The Exorcism of Annalise Michelle (The Exorcism of Emily Rose movie review)

 

Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

The Exorcism of Emily Rose was already added to my list of ‘watch later’ on Netflix, but I hadn't gotten around to seeing it until this course. Before starting the movie, I saw that it was based on a true story, so I looked into it. Normally with found footage movies, like Paranormal Activity, they say ‘based on a true story’, but aren’t actually. This one is. I found an in-depth article about the real Emily Rose, a girl named Annalise Michelle. I can't explain a lot of the parallels as eloquently as the article, but there were a few nice details I did notice in the movie after reading about the real case.

I appreciated the reference of the ‘123456’ praying up and down on her knees, because apparently that was a thing that Annalise Michelle did. For context, they say her cause of death was malnutrition because she starved herself (fasting) and spent all of her time on her knees praying. But here we get differences in the movie versus the actual case. The main modification is the verdicts of the case. In the movie, we get a very satisfying ending, ‘guilty but free’, whereas in real life everyone involved went to jail. But it’s based on a true story, not a documentary.

The best thing about this movie is that it leaves the audience with a question of what ‘truly happened’ to Emily Rose. Or does it? We see some very solid arguments and visual recreations of a scientific versus a paranormal case. No outright demons are shown, but the persuasion factor is there because of the point-of-view of the movie. It focuses on the mind of the defense attorney as she begins to believe the priest’s claims. A nice choice for the big screen, but in the real case there was no competition, the medical side won. In media, the idea of religious views as a defense works and made the doctors seem horrible (ex: forced sedation), but in real life science is more rational than the supernatural. We have separation of state and church.

Now for the movie to stand on it own. The pacing was excellent in how the evidence was presented, which is high praise because pacing is really easy to mess up. I loved the recurring images and parallels between the defense attorney, the priest, and Emily Rose, like the hallways, 3 am, smelling smoke, and the doors moving on their own. Speaking of the defense, the dialog from both attorneys was excellent and the acting in this movie was great. It may not have been a super scary ghost tale, but a lot of scenes left me unnerved and uncomfortable. Examples of this (and good acting) are when Emily Rose is having her muscles contract, when her voice changes, and her crazy eye movements. The whole spook factor to this movie can go to the acting and not so much to things like setting or music.

Overall: I would watch this movie again with friends, but probably not by myself since I already know what happens.

 

The Very, Very, Very Long Shining (The Shining book review)

The Shining by Stephen King

15 hours and 50 minutes for this audiobook. Almost 16 hours of Stephen King. Most other audiobooks for this course have been approximately 7-9 hours long. Now, this audiobook was enjoyable, but goodness it was longwinded.

I love that in the book we get more in depth with the characters of Danny and his Shining and Jack and his addiction. Getting to hear about Jack’s temper with breaking Danny’s arm and beating up his student were very interesting and overlooked in the movie. Not just hearing about Tony, but seeing the visions he shows Danny is something I greatly enjoy. But the book still isn’t perfect.

It feels like King is paid by the word. While I like the book better than the movie, there are definitely scenes that could be cut from the novel with little to no impact on the plot. I felt myself tuning out of the book in some places because the descriptions went on and on. I feel like the scene with the bees was a great way to show the Overlook Hotel as its own character, but it also was repetitive and long. The scene at the doctor was good for telling the parents not to worry about their son, but it lasted ages longer than needed. Wendy constantly thought about her issues with her mother. Now, I’ve only seen the movie once, but I got halfway through the book and feel like I still haven’t come across much that was seen in the movie outside of Dick Hallorann telling Danny about the shining (which by the way, that scene with them in the car is done so well in the book).

Speaking of differences between the movie and book, the hedges were amazing. I thought it was done well in both the movie and the book even though they were done differently. Danny cleverly stepping in his dads footprints in the snow in the movie was clever. But the hedge animals supposedly moving when he wasn’t looking at them was even better. Danny didn’t want to go play at the park, so Jack did instead, and then the hedges move. This was the one scene I didn’t mind King going into in-depth detail about, telling us about the dog hedge being a shepherd that could be trained to be vicious. These were details I enjoyed learning more about, leaving me questioning if the house had moved them or if he was hallucinating.

The movie is about Jack. The book is about Jack and Danny. Neither is about Wendy, the classic passive and whiny female in older books. She has a redemption arc in the end with the pantry, but overall she was a disappointment as the female representation. She wasn’t the main character, and was barely a side character. She was more there for her interactions with the other two.

The whole book is a not-subtle allegory for addiction. I knew that going in and wasn’t excited for it because so many ghost stories are allegories for some form of mental illness. But I did really enjoy this book. I’d never really read King before, but I would be open to read another of his books after this one. It wasn’t perfect, but it was pleasant.

Overall: the book was better than the movie.

Real Skeletons, Really Entertaining (Poltergeist movie review)

 

Poltergeist (1982)

Honestly, for a ghost movie, Poltergeist didn't really scare me. It leaned more heavily into the thriller category. I had forgotten, but this movie was meant to be in the horror genre as well, but I didn’t remember until the scene where Ryan pulled his face off in the mirror and chunks fell into the sink. What makes this movie scary was all of the things happening off set, like using real skeletons without telling the actors, lots of near death/actual death of actors, exorcisms on the sequels set, etc. This movie felt like a good comparison to The Amityville Horror in its multiple haunting tropes. We get lots of elements that feel like parodies of ghosts paired with stoned parents being super emotional.

Earlier in the movie I was cruising along and enjoying the moving chair, the talking TV, the tree monster, and the dog barking at the burn in the wall. I even enjoyed the idea that Carol Anne got pulled into the vortex and can only talk to her family through the TV. The vortex being in her closet was a little predictable, but I enjoyed it. But after the point when her parents called in the 'experts', that's when the movie started losing my interest. I know it's an old movie, but it became too over-the-top for me. I still can't believe that after everything the fictional family went through, they stayed another night in the house before heading to the hotel.

The special effects were very unconvincing, but given that the movie was made in 1982 that was to be expected. Now I'm a sucker for cheesy special effects, and my favorite movie is The Princess Bride (which has a man in a rat suit as a R.O.U.S- rats of unusual size). Because of that comparison, I found the special effects of the poltergeist face and tentacles very funny. Despite looking fake, I enjoyed them. Even the medium cleansing the house was fairly humorous. The fact that the old lady's face contrasted so much with her childlike voice was amazing.

But is this a poltergeist movie? The name suggests so, but does the movie? A poltergeist is defined as: a type of ghost or spirit that is responsible for physical disturbances, such as loud noises and objects being moved or destroyed, and they are purportedly capable of pinching, biting, hitting, and tripping people. We do get biting and objects being throw around, including the chairs moving and the children’s bedroom literally having everything float around in the air. So by the definition above, it is a poltergeist. But then again, we have multiple ghosts in the house, and the image we get from inside the closet seems more demonic than ghostly. When I think of poltergeists, my mind always goes to Peeves from Harry Potter, where I think of mischievous more than murderous. So in my mind, this movie was more a demonic force with other spirits than a poltergeist in itself.

Overall: the movie was hysterical, but maybe don’t show it to kids.

A Grave Way To Begin (Grave's End book review)

 

Grave's End: A True Ghost Story by Elaine Mercado

Despite being a short book, reading Grave’s End by Elaine Mercado felt like it lasted forever. I was hoping we’d get to action ¼ of the way through the book, or get to a climax by ½ way through (I read an e-book version and didn’t look at my progress very often). But every time I saw the chapter number was a disappointment. Not because the book was horrible, but because the book was boring.

The plot is a lot of the mom (and kids) being haunted by the paranormal, the mom repeating she wants to leave and is scared, her husband invalidating her, and then they cycle through those events again. She never leaves, just complains. She goes through phases of believing and doubting herself. I know this book is supposed to be based on a true story, so it makes sense that the plot is slow and long like it would be in real life. The author is the main character we follow, so it’s written like a autobiography. It makes sense she doesn’t leave her house because most people can’t just up and leave, especially with family. It follows the pattern of mental illness and questioning in how her mind is a broken record. But it was just so slow for a novel.

Then I finally hit the halfway point in the book. This is when everything changed from a story retelling to a novel. Finally we get a moving plot. Before the Halloween scene, the plot felt like it was stagnant, not moving forward. After her boss, lover, brother, and brother girlfriend validate her, the intensity of the ghosts pick up and with it so does the plot. We get increased ghost activity and the addiction of the ghost hunter and medium. There is finally a sense that everything is no longer a flat wishy-washy line of recurrence, that now there is a light at the end of the tunnel. This is when I started enjoying the story and reading it like a fiend. Before then, it was nice seeing a realistic interpretation of a ghost story told from both the kids as believers, the mom as questioning, and the dad in denial. But after the halfway point I finally felt like I could read the rest of the book in one sitting. But it says something if 80% of the way into thr book the official medium still isn't here.

The moving action makes the rest of this better. But, if I were to compare Grave’s End to other books I’ve read from earlier classes, it would not stand up. This book gets better the farther in you get, but as a whole it is not as entertaining for me as a book about Russian myths. Maybe ghost stories and haunting aren’t for me. This is certainly much better than ghosts sexually assaulting ladies, but that isn’t hard to accomplish. I suppose I’m just finding out that I enjoy books that move externally rather than analyze internally for the majority of the pages.

Overall: Could be worse, but could definitely be better.

Amityville Ooze From Multiple Origins (The Amityville Horror book review)

 

The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson

‘Based on a True Story’: this book has it, Paranormal Activity did, and The Exorcism of Emily Rose does. However, only Emily Rose is actually based on a true story, and even that is a story adaptation and not a documentary. So, is The Amityville Horror actually a true tale? Honestly, that’s not what I care about. What matters is if this is a good haunting story or not, and the answer is about as (un)clear as the truth of the original tale.

One thing that was really nice about this book was that it didn’t shy away from the visceral bodily reactions characters had to the ghosts. Instead of only focusing on the mental toll the haunting took on the family, we also get the dad having horrifying diarrhea that’s exacerbated by holy water, and we get the priest who blessed the demonic house with open, bleeding, pussy sores on his hands. Now, I’m not normally a fan physical attacks in ghost books, but the constant return to the dad having to run to the bathroom was hilarious. It was probably meant more so to lean into the gross-out factor of some horror (and make for a better movie), but it served instead for some humor with your horror. I normally watch the movies for class with friends, but this is the first audiobook I’ve streamed. Let me tell you, for days now they have been making jokes that this is the best example of ‘ghost diarrhea’ in a book they’ve ever read. Also, it’s the only example of it. But the book did it’s job being memorable because days later they are still talking about it, so there’s something to be said for that.

But then the story becomes overwhelming with too many horror tropes. I was enjoying the ghosts and cold and sleepwalking possession, but then the author threw in a secret demonic worship lair, a pig man, and hoofprints in the snow, green ooze from the walls, and that’s when they lost me. Up until then, the book was very over the top, but kept me reading with an enjoyable ghost story. But as soon as they started throwing in demonic possession and saying the land was haunted even before the house, it became too much of a menagerie of different haunting tropes. Is this a traumatized spirit, a demon, a haunted house, or something else?

It’s plausible the book is a true retelling, but it’s also possible it was a ploy for publicity. If people can overlook so many horror tropes then they are gullible thinking this book is true. But I say that as a writer, not as a historian or a lawyer. But a lot of readers and viewers like the idea of story based on reality because it makes it more scary and plays on humans’ fear of the unknown. Humans fear the unknown but are also curious about it, so movies or books that give them that sense of something beyond their realm of possibility and control is enticing.

Overall: I would read another book rather than reread this, but it’s good to know where the phrase ‘the walls oozed green slime’ comes from.

I Watched The Others With Others (The Others movie review)

 

The Others (2001)

I streamed The Others with a bunch of my international friends. Even before watching it, two out of six of us had seen it already and highly recommended it (I had never seen it). After it ended, the rest of us were raving too. 

At the beginning, it became pretty clear quickly that there was some kind of haunting. Specific word choices foreshadowed to the ending of the family being ghosts, like the housekeeping family alluding to tuberculosis, the children talking (or avoiding talking) about the day their mom went mad, or the girl describing Victor's family 'viewing' the house. Yet, the all of these were done subtly enough to suspend belief until closer to the end of the film.

The point-of-view of the main character not realizing she was dead was great. It shows stages of grief and how she got caught in denial. Yet later she says she thought God had given her a second chance with her children, so she knew all along and so did the children. The movie kept you thinking throughout it, unsure of the source of the haunting events and who if anyone were really the ghosts.

This point-of-view a very strange way to show a movie since most hauntings are told from the perspective of the living humans. Plus, ghosts are generally seen as the ominous and destructive ones, like poltergeists. Leaning on the common destructive trope helps suspend belief for the viewer, especially when things like Victor opening the curtains occur. We assume he is trying to haunt the children and kill them because of their photosensitivity, but in actuality it is the children and mom that are the ghosts closing and locking doors on the living.

Despite adoring this movie, I thought the plot line with the father was pretty unnecessary. He died on the battlefield and should have stayed there since traumatic deaths generally don’t naturally pass on, they haunt where they were killed. But the father came to say goodbye to his family as if he could move on easily once he did that. Honestly, all that added nothing to the plot either. The only purpose he served was to get the mother back to the house from the fog, but she could have just gotten lost and kept ending up at the house until she gave up.

That being said, I had no other qualms with the movie. It kept me entertained through and through. It even kept my fiancé entertained, and he can be very picky with movies, especially with pacing. If you thought my review of Paranormal Activity was scathing, you should have heard his. But The Others he thoroughly enjoyed, much to my surprise given the older movie setting and vibe. The only issue my entourage had was confusion about whether the kids were actually photosensitive while alive or not.

Other feedback from my crew was: An interesting take on a trope and a very original idea. Instead of the house being haunted, they were the ones doing the haunting, but without realizing it. For once, the audience gets a haunted house movie that isn’t scary!

Overall: I would watch this again despite knowing the ending. It seems like the type of movie that you’d notice new little things each time you watch it again.

It Was A Dream To Read This Nightmare (Nightmare House book review)

Nightmare House by Douglas Clegg

If my fiancé hadn’t come home from work, I would have finished this book in one sitting. It is a very quick read. I was ¾ of the way through and already recommending it to my friends. Finally, a book about a haunted house that I enjoyed!

This book is what it means for a haunted house to be its own character and have its own personality. The house was built to be a puzzle, a maze, with occult practices in mind during its creation. Looking into the book as a series, “the Harrow series consists of several books set in or around the haunted estate in the Hudson Valley. Each Harrow story can be read out-of-order because the main continuing character is the dark mansion itself or those people who have or will touch it,” (Amazon). This is so accurate and makes me want to request the rest of the series from the library. In fact, I normally buy the books I like best from each of my terms and this one just might make the cut.

Point-of-view can make or break a book. This story was told from two different perspectives, thought technically the same character: Esteban/Ethan Gravesend as a young man first entering Harrow House and him as an old man looking back on his childhood and manhood. The duality furthered the story’s depth. There was a lot of duality and binaries. The perspective of Ethan, the personalities of Matilda, the morals of Pocket. All of them had good and bad sides, but one always outweighed the other in the end.

Now, if you asked me what the beginning of this book was about, I wouldn’t remember much to say except character introductions up until the tower. But that is fine with me because I was never bored. I enjoyed meeting all the interesting personalities and learning about Ethan’s grandfather until we hit the wonderful twist of family secrets literally hidden in the woodwork. And my goodness, the twist of Matilda being buried alive and then hidden in the walls of the house. I was screaming in the best way possible when finding her body came to light. The twist about her being Ethan’s mother was also fabulous.

This book has perfect examples of good twists in horror throughout it. Nobody is who they seem.  The whole books works really well to keep you unsure of what is morally right. That was something I really appreciated about it, especially in a ghost story which can so often push for the ghost as malicious.

My only complaint with the book really was the end with Maggie. Ethan can’t save her, and despite not knowing her very well, he is convinced they were meant to be together. Therefore, he takes care of Alf and lets him basically take over control of Harrow. This was not a great ending for me, but I did like that Ethan refused to go into the house again.

Overall: I would read this book again and recommend it to friends.

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Books I've Read In 2020

The Chowder That Left Me Hungry, And Not For More (Ghost Story book review)

Ghost Story by Peter Straub

Let it be known that if I was writing an academic essay on Ghost Story by Peter Straub, I would have a very differing opinion of this book. During undergrad when I was in honors for literature, a thesis on this book would be easy. The structure of the novel is very intentional. From the current descriptions of the Chowder Society’s minds, to the morbid stories they tell during meetings, to the background about Donald Wanderley and his lover, every bit of this book is a puzzle piece of individual ghost stories. While at the beginning they may appear a bit disjointed, slowly but surely they all connect. 

The Chowder Society tell tales of young boys killed, talk of their nightmares of each other’s ghosts, hear voices before they die. The reader gets tales of how a member, Edward Wanderley, was scared to death a year prior, and we get the backstory of his nephew who was engaged to someone who not only talked to a ghost, but seemed to have never existed at all herself based on the ‘truths’ she told. The structure of the chapters puts the reader in a sense of unease, unsure what is true or not, but always telling a version of a ghost story no matter the character’s point-of-view.

From a non-academic standpoint, I hated the structure. I’m glad that these posts are more like opinion articles from a newspaper rather than literary essays because this book did not work for me. I called it disjointed before and I stand by that, both in structure and characters.

There were too many characters. We have multiple members of The Chowder Society, all their wives,  kids, other townspeople, and more. Then we learn that some of the long list of characters we’ve heard of and tried to keep track of are now all the same person. Eva Galli is also Alma Mobley, Ann-Veronica-Moore, Anna Mostyn, and Amy Monkton. Greggory Bate is also Greg Benton and Greggorio. Fenny Bate is the small boy beckoning everyone to come outside and play. So after taking extensive notes to keep track of everyone, it’s all for naught. 

Up until the middle of the book, I assumed everything happening was created by the minds of The Chowder Society from untreated trauma, but near the middle-end of the book, confirmation is given on supernatural entities being behind it all. We get a ghost in Fenny Bate, and another in Lewis’s dead wife. We get a werewolf in Greg Benton. We get multiple women with the initials A.M.. Then we learn that Eva Galli is a shapeshifter. Let’s not forget the slaughtered sheep who died to a  vampire (which before the scarf discovery, I assumed was a Chupacabra). So are the characters shapeshifters, vampires, werewolves, or something else? The answer is left unclear, Straub explaining it off as some greater being that can speak in and mess with the minds of humans. Great for a monster book, not as great for a ghost story. The book left much to be desired. 

Overall: Too consistently confusing for 567 pages. 

Also, here is a link to someone else’s review that I enjoyed.

Now That's One Hell of a House (Hell House book review)

 

Hell House by Richard Matheson

Now this book is what I wanted out of a haunted house story. The house itself seems to have its own personality, Belasco being the one controlling all of it, like a puppet master in the wings.

Hell House did a wonderful job in keeping the reader unsure whether to trust Florence or Lionel, mediums or scientists. Back and forth we went, seeing the evidence validated from both sides until the very last scene. I’ll admit, I did think the book was over after Lionel’s machine finished, but then Benjamin said exactly what I was thinking, that ending like that was too easy. Chapter to chapter, I never knew exactly what was the truth or not about the ghosts, Belasco, Daniel, Florence’s power, or anything else in the house. I love that.

The prompt for this week talked about masculine takes on haunted house books, specifically using the term ‘testosterone-driven’. This book was not that to me. Perhaps Belasco himself was sex-crazed and lusty over the women in the book, even possessing them into doing sexual acts, but the other men were uninterested. Sex, not testosterone specifically. That being said, the lines where they women were possessed and saying vulgar sexual things to one another really turned me away from this book. I am asexual, like Alexis, but I find myself often sex-repulsed by such blatantly lewd things. The bruises around her nipples and even they gay wandering eyes didn’t bother me, but the vulgar speech was what got to me despite being integral to the haunting.

That being said, Matheson does have a style. It reminds me of Clive Barker. We previously read Rawhead Rex for the Monsters course, and the same kind of imagery was found in that story. I titled that blog post ‘Raw-Head Sex, Urine, Menstrual Blood, and Other Forgettable Fluids’. Matheson seems to have a clear focus on body mutilation and sex when it comes to Hell House. That subgenre is not my cup of tea (and I love most tea). But whereas a short story such as Rawhead Rex didn’t hook me in, Hell House caught my attention and held it, so I was able to get past the vulgarity to get to the next plot point. A few times I did chuckle from how absurd it was. The vulgarity was the only thing I didn’t like about this book. Everything else was lovely.

The ending for this book was both a hit and miss for me. Finding out Belasco was a self-hating, self-mutilating man with leg extensions was disappointing. Degrading him into submission was also very unsatisfying. But learning that his dead body was hidden behind the chapel in a lead room, and he had dehydrated himself to death with a pitcher of water a few feet away? Now that is what I was looking for.

But Hell House really hit all the notes I wanted that The Haunting of Hill House didn’t. We get more of the paranormal. We still get parallels between science and the supernatural. We get inside the heads of the characters analyzing phenomena around them without being dragged down by lengthy internal monologues.

Overall: I enjoyed reading this book, but probably wouldn’t watch a movie adaptation of it.

The Haunting Mind of Eleanor Vance (The Haunting of Hill House book review)

 

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

In this week’s group discussion, we were asked which is more effective for ghost stories: fast-paced or slow burn. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson is definitely the latter. Since I grew up in an era of ‘can’t catch my breath’ thrilling ghost stories, I could immediately tell that this book was older, from 1959 upon further research.

The beginning of this book had me hooked. We got the gold dining set debacle with the old sisters who owned the house, and the theories about subterranean waters instead of ghosts. My favorite funny moment was doctor joking about how he wouldn’t have hanged himself from the library tower like one person did and would instead have liked it to be from the deer head in the game room.

This book kept sending my mind to the movie Clue (1985). The feeling of the old house and the people interacting drew me there, especially after the ominous story of the two daughters of Hugh Crain. The details about the house being just slightly off in angles was great.

But the characters ruined this book for me.

The story centered around the mindset of Eleanor Vance, a woman mentally unstable after taking care of her disabled and demanding mother for years. So we have an unreliable narrator who could either be especially sensitive to the supernatural or could be seeing and hearing things the other characters couldn’t because of a psychotic break.

And oh, Eleanor could whine! The first few sections of the book had me hooked, even through the slow burn of getting to the writing of the blood on the walls the first time and the dog. But then we have Nell’s repeated ‘journeys end in lovers meeting’ that drove me crazy. Plus her wishy-washy relationship with being almost cousins with Theodora, then hating her, then heartfelt wanting to move in with Theo, etc. Theodora was no saint herself as a character, a clear caricature of a whiny and spoiled rich kid. Luke was the classic troublemaker that begrudgingly helped. The Mr. and Mrs. Dudley are the stereotypical Scooby-Doo rude caretakers of the estate. A slow burn isn’t a bad way to tell a ghost story, but these characters were not helping the situation.

There were very few decent characters. Dr. Montague was a good leader of the group, and I found when his wife came in she was ridiculously over the top, adding yet another humorous element to the story. Arthur, the toxically masculine teacher and guard, was entertaining on occasion but forgettable. But the book wasn’t told from their points-of-view.

Almost everything after the first bloody writing and dog seemed to drag for me, excluding Mrs. Montague’s outbursts. The plot was too much of Eleanor’s internal dialog and thoughts. If they had been about the ghosts, perhaps it would have been interesting, but instead they were all about how she was perceived by the other characters. I had hoped the ending would turn everything around, back to the enjoyment I had at the beginning. It did not.

Eleanor finally snaps. She runs around banging on doors daring people to open them in case she is a ghost. She runs up a decrepit staircase, putting herself and Luke (sent to get her) in danger. The others force her to leave the house because she shouldn’t be enjoying staying in such a cursed environment. Thus, she drives her car into a tree, and her last thought is why, as if the spirit of Hill House possessed her and made her do it. Of course, we don’t technically know she is dead, but the end chapter of the book is telling what all the other characters did after, but there is no mention of Eleanor, so it can be assumed she is gone. I wonder if her spirit stayed at Hill House to join Hugh Crain.

Overall: While I don’t mind a slow build up for ghost stories, this book fell flat for me. But perhaps the recent TV adaptation is better, though I’ve never seen it.

Class Book Overview: The Haunted (08/19/20)

 Reviews so far

Do Read:

**** Nightmare House (Douglas Clegg)

*** The Exorcist (William Peter Blatty)

*** The Amityville Horror (Jay Anson)

*** The Shining (Stephen King)

Don't Read:

** Grave's End (Elaine Mercado)

** Hell House (Richard Matheson)

** The Haunting of Hill House (Shirley Jackson)

** Ghost Story (Peter Straub)

Movie Reviews -->

Class Movies Overview: The Haunted (08/19/20)

 Reviews so far

Do Watch:

***** Ghostbusters (1984)

**** The Others (2001)

**** The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

*** Poltergeist (1982)

** Ghostbusters (2016)

** Paranormal Activity (2007)

Don't Watch:

Book Reviews -->

Watching People Watching a Video of Themselves (Paranormal Activity 2007 movie review)

Paranormal Activity (2007)

 

Get ready for my version of a semi-scathing review…

My boyfriend says horror movies tend to get low ratings on IMDb, so the fact that most of the movies we are watching this term get in the 6-7 range out of 10 is impressive. Paranormal Activity (2007) is advertised as a horror/mystery movie, but I would put it more as a thriller. There is a lot of suspense and build up, but only in the very last night do I ever get scared, and that’s because it’s a jump scare. I normally get nightmares from horror movies, but I found myself not scared to sleep after watching this. It was tense, it was interesting, but it wasn’t scary. As a thriller it was great, or a mystery because of the clues given in doses along the way. But I actually looked up to see why everyone said it was such a groundbreaking horror movie. I found a very long and dull article from 2009 that said the following:

As Paranormal expands into even more theaters, it seems likely to hit at least $100 million. All of Hollywood is watching. “What they did was very clever,” says a rival marketing exec. “I keep hearing it’s the scariest movie ever. When something generates that kind of word of mouth, you can be creative. And they were. They turned it into a movement.” (ew.com)

So apparently a low-budget horror film became a box office hit. Good for them honestly. I thought the pacing of the story was well done, and the structure of the nights with the timer in the corner was very clever. Even the found footage style was fitting and interesting even though found footage films generally make me motion sick. The line about the monster feeding off negative energy and Micah saying, “We shouldn't let your mother come over anymore,” was hilarious. I laughed aloud and made my boyfriend pause the movie so I could have a moment.

But the characters were where this movie lost me. I know we are supposed to hate Micah. They purposely make him the macho man asshole, but a lot of his lines made me so angry. He’s emotionally manipulative, says Katie should have told him about the demon before they moved in together, found a loophole of ‘borrowing’ not ‘buying’ an Ouija board, and literally told her to “pop a pill” at one point. It was very reminiscent of some emotionally abusive people I’ve known in the past. Micah is classic toxic masculinity, thinking in terms of his girlfriend, his house, he will solve the problem. So if that’s what the writers were going for, bravo. It was a good plot device to have them fighting after explaining that the demon feeds off negative energy.

But where Micah made me angry, Katie made me exhausted. The classic pushover girlfriend. She lets him do what he wants, says she wants to call the demonologist the next day after the ghost guy and Micah has her put it off unless it gets worse. And it gets worse. So then she threatens calling the demonologist again rather than just calling whether Micah approves or not. She doesn’t leave the house to call though, so he can stop her from doing it. And it yet again gets worse. She didn’t call and instead let Micah put down powder after the Ouija board literally caught on fire and moved! She finally calls the demonologist on the third threat and it’s too late because he’s out of town. Both the characters are classic stupid horror stereotypes, the man who wants to fight something out of his control (and eggs on the monster even) and the useless girl who thinks logically but does nothing.

And so we circle back to the ending once more. The jump scares. I was happy that Micah was finally dead. I wasn’t surprised that Katie was finally fully possessed. And then lights out. End scene. This movie left me so disappointed. After the credits came on I said aloud, “Wait, that’s it?”

Overall: I objectively see why Paranormal Activity is a classic, famous, and beloved horror movie. But it just didn’t do it for me. I wanted more demon and less boyfriend. It was good, it just didn't live up to the hype. 3/5 stars

Spinning Fairy Tales Anew (Spinning Silver book review)

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik

I wanted to speak to the references to Rumpelstiltskin in this book. Even the title itself, Spinning Silver, is a play on the original tale, but this time Novik chooses to have the characters spinning silver instead of straw.

I got into this book and my mind immediately thought of two old tales to compare to our assigned book. The first was the ancient Greek tale of Midas who everything he touched turned to gold. This made sense with Miryam being able to turn both her wares and coins into gold, and was only reaffirmed when she could literally turn the crown and coins to gold with her touch. But as I read on, I quickly decided that it was based more on the second of my thoughts, Rumpelstiltskin.

There are many versions of the tale of Rumpelstiltskin, but the most well known of them is by The Brothers Grimm. In many versions, the common details that appear are: a girl from a poor family (general a millers daughter) and a wealthy man wedding her because of a lie someone told about her accomplishing great feats (generally spinning straw or skeins). Then the imp or demon aiding her  and the repetition of the number three (three times she must sew gold, three times she tries to guess the creatures name), and then the creature (Rumpelstiltskin) gloating and revealing his name so he loses his bargain. The Brother Grimm version can be found here if you want to read it, it is very short: https://www.pookpress.co.uk/rumpelstiltskin-brothers-grimm/

This plays in greatly to the importance of deals within the book, because the point of the story is the girl accomplishing a deal their parents made or else they are killed, then making deals with Rumpelstiltskin himself and eventually getting out of them. This could be why the Staryk king is so firm about no debts. It also explains why Miryam and Irina make deals in many different forms because the heroine in the original tale is forced into one deal for marriage vs death, then the next giving away her belongings and children vs no gold, and then finally names vs her child. The girls are all different forms of the heroine from the story in my mind, all different parts of her time. Wanda being the millers girl who is hungry and eats pies from the version of the story called Tim Tit Tom, Irina being the girl forced into a marriage she didn’t ask for, and Miryam trying to not lose what she holds dear (her self respect etc).

But I wouldn’t categorize this book as a retelling of the story of Rumpelstiltskin. Some books I’ve read would be, such as ones that take off from where the fairytale left off like in Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix. Others keep the main elements of the tale but put it in a new context, such as changing the culture of the story etc. But this book doesn’t do that. We get the millers daughter in Wanda, but she is not the one who can turn things to gold. We get the deal with the imp aka the Staryk king, but instead of the heroine getting out of the deal by learning his name to keep her firstborn child, the Staryk king himself is the one trying to protect those he cares about by nobly trying to keep his people from melting.

The book is a wonderful version of what I ideally would like to accomplish with my work. References to classic folktales and myths without being predictable recreations.

A must read.

A Long Book Not Really About A Planet (A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet book review)

 

A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet by Becky Chambers

Before I get into my analysis of this book, let me just share my favorite quote, told by Sissix to Ashby: “Come on. Put on your trousers. I want to meet the woman who gets to take them off.”

This book is definitely geared more toward social issues than it is toward plot. However, that really works for the book, and I found myself enjoying all of the species diversity, character interactions, government commentary, and environmental issues.

This book definitely touches on multiple social issues we face in our current society. It speaks to racism and how other species are not only treated, but how they are spoken about. Like how initially Rosemary described Sissix not as beautiful in human standard, but as striking. She can’t judge that the Aandrisk appearances by human norms. That also is seen in how Sissix at the beginning sensors her affection with Rosemary despite Rosemary expecting overt affection from her studies of Aandrisks. They can’t always believe what word of mouth or books teach them about society and morality of others without personal experience. Not only that, but the book touches on language barriers and how different people adapt in order to be able to communicate or interact with other species, like how Ashby knows the basics of Pei’s color language and how she has a vocal implant to be able to speak aloud to him.

The book not only speaks to racial outcasts though, it also speaks to gender and sexuality, and even to mental health. For example, the ‘rashek’ Aandrisk that Sissix sees on the street is very similar to modern day perceptions of Autism. Without the prompt asking this though, I would have just categorized the action with any other form of social isolation to things people see as odd, like how westerners view eating bugs as gross whereas other cultures don’t. But with the prompt, I thought about it more in regards to even people of her own species treating her differently and the answer became clear. She isn’t physical contagious with a disease, she just is ‘awkward’ and doesn’t know how to properly interact with other people around her. Sissix gives her affection while other Aandrisks who are from there walk by and act as if they don’t see the older woman.

A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet made me think back to the social issues addressed in The Bear and the Nightingale as well. That book talked about cultures changing and evolving, like Christianity taking over primarily pagan spaces, or the social expectations of a young girl growing up in that time period and era. This book felt like it also focused on topics like that in regards to outside influences and perspectives views on other societies. Rosemary was a newcomer, someone who had never left her home planet of Mars, and yet she was very accepting in trying to be respectful and not judgmental of all these species lives and customs she wasn’t used to. She even was reasonable with the space pirates, who were a great representation of the lower economic class turning to crime in order to take care of their family.

There are too many social issues to get into in so little space. I haven’t even touched on how society views death, and the perspective of Ohan and the other crew on their dying. Needless to say, this book is much more about the characters and their interactions than about plot. I thought the book was slow until 1/3 of the way through when the crew got a new job for tunneling. But as I got farther into the book, my perspective changed too. I went into the book with expectations of tension and stakes in plot to keep me reading, like I do with most stories, but this book changed my mind. While it is a lot of world building and background information following several characters, it works. When I restructure my framework of what I expect out of a book and take a step back, I really enjoyed the book. It flowed well and I was interested in every single character's goals and motivations.

Verdict: a must-read.

Books I Read in 2020

The Bear and the Nightingale (Katherine Arden) 312 pgs
A Long Way to a Small Angry Planet (Becky Chambers) 438 pgs
Annihilation (Jeff VanderMeer) 208 pgs
The City of Brass (S. A. Chakraborty) 569 pgs
The Calculating Stars (Mary Robinette Kowal) 424 pgs
Spinning Silver (Naomi Novik) 480 pgs

The Haunting of Hill House (Shirley Jackson) 246 pgs

Hell House (Richard Matheson) 304 pgs

Ghost Story (Peter Straub) 567 pgs

Nightmare House (Douglas Clegg) 340 pg

The Amityville Horror (Jay Anson) 256 pg

Grave's End: A True Ghost Story (Elaine Mercado) 192 pg