The Red Death Strikes Again: Bethany Griffin’s Masque of the Red Death

One part classic redux. One part steampunk. One part gothic. And a few pinches of new and different in there and you get Bethany Griffin’s Masque of the Red Death, the intriguing spin-off of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story classic of the same name.

After reading (and enjoying!) Griffin’s The Fall, it seemed like a pretty good bet to give her better known and more highly acclaimed book a chance, too. I’m not sure exactly what I expected, but it is quite similar in style to The Fall. Essentially, we see a little more of the characters we meet in Poe’s original tale, but that’s where the similarities end. Indeed, in The Fall there is even a certain amount of closure as a stand-alone read, whereas here, Ms. Griffin’s story was broken into two books, and we don’t really even approach the heart of what makes up Poe’s story until the very end, when we do begin to get some mention of a massive masque ball being hosted by Prince Prospero at his giant gothic castle on the outskirts of a (quite literally) dying city.

And Ms. Griffin’s story really plays up all the Victorian era goodness that one might expect from a tale of this period, and particularly one from gothic master Poe. We see death and destruction, mayhem, violence, a massive divide between the rich and the poor, the reliance on science to create faith and to allow the people to see hope and possibility past the massive wave of disease overtaking (potentially) the world. Indeed, the countersurgence against Prince Prospero’s self-absorbed reign is led by the Reverend Malcontent, who effectively home grows a rebellion throughout the course of the story.

I have to say that I was somewhat surprised by the steampunk element thrown in for good measure. It’s omnipresent in the lifestyle that Araby leads, and effects all of the denizens of the broken city. The horses have died, so only the extremely wealthy get steam carriages to drive them about; the air is filled with contagious disease amoebas or something, so those who can afford one walk around with face masks (and those who don’t apparently stay shut up tight indoors or die pretty quickly); the poor are clearly dangerous, so the wealthiest live in a protective tower; a hot air balloon provides a chance to rendezvous at a non-fatal-to-remove-one’s-mask altitude; a zephyr provides escape.

Our protagonist, Araby, is hell-bent on destroying herself on her way to attaining “oblivion” (the use of the word, for some reason, made me think of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, but for no reason other than that that word is used somewhat repeatedly in Mr. Green’s work. And with better reason and purpose). Her father seems to be thrown up as a point of debate: he created the masks that have saved those wealthy enough to buy one, but there’s a suggestion that he may also have been responsible for the disease that caused the need for them. So he’s a generally distracted and distant mess, who’s under the watch and control of Prince Prospero. Her mother is a weak, nervous woman for reasons that Araby doesn’t know nor cares to find out.

Araby, for her part, is annoying. She’s weak, she’s self-absorbed and, to be honest, she ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed. She spends her days, from what the book suggests, living the life of a Victorian era socialite: she lounges about her posh apartment building during the day, reads, stares out the window, then in the evening perks up to go out to the Debauchery District with the Prince’s niece, April, to get wasted (back to that “oblivion” idea). She then proceeds to stay out most of the night before stumbling back home to sleep off the morning and repeat, day after day. Despite the fact that so many people can’t afford masks to keep them alive. Despite the fact that she has wealth, safety and privilege that so many in this society would kill for. Despite her mother’s concern for her and her father’s constant work.

All of this eventually culminates in riots in the city, Araby’s dealings with an awkward love triangle, and the rise of Reverend Malcontent’s thugs in a city-wide uprising.

What I Liked About the Story:

1. It’s very atmospheric, with strong lines drawn between “the haves” and “the have nots.” This is in keeping with writing of Poe’s time, when authors tended to paint a very bleak picture of what it was like to be on the poorer side of life. The author’s pretty good at being consistent with it, too.

2. We don’t have a clear picture of what’s going on in the beginning going into the story, and as a result, you really do turn the pages to understand the full picture (which you still only marginally get, but something’s better than nothing). The relationships between people, peoples’ motivations, etc, are all revealed in bits and pieces, which is preferable over having them all laid out for you.

3. The interplay of science and it’s place in this society is intriguing to me. We see new inventions, new technology, the melding of familiar structures with unfamiliar purposes. I dig it because not only was this a major idea in Poe’s time, but it’s something that I could imagine–in this type of slow disaster scenario–people taking seriously and trying to put all their faith into.

4. Speaking of faith, Ms. Griffin does an equally intriguing job of building the idea of science as a form of religion. In a time when churches generally seem to be defunct and people are still trying to find something to believe in, when people are dying left and right by the hundreds and then (and sometimes even before they’ve died) being fed to the crocodiles, the masses are still trying to locate something worth continuing to have faith about. And science, as we see through Araby’s father’s work, seems to be what they’ve decided to believe in. Seems like a safe bet in this scenario, too, at least until science stops having all the answers and humanity itself becomes more dangerous.

5. But similarly, and so as not to really take sides completely, Ms. Griffin still lets us in on the fallacy of science. We learn about how it was scientists who created the contagion as well as a new strain, the Red Death, which have been unleashed on the people. We learn it was scientists who decided to bring in the crocodiles, yes, but it was also scientists who brought in bats before that, which now attack people on the streets. I guess what I liked was that nothing in this book–and no one–is infallible. There is no one hero, just as there is no one solution.

What I Didn’t Love:

1. Araby is really annoying. Talk about self absorbed! And, really, at 17, she should have developed enough to understand that her actions do have consequences and that they do affect the other people around her. What’s more, she should also be able to realize that her parents are not going to tell her every single thing they think, believe, breath, or experience–but that there’s probably a reason behind why they did what they did.

2. The love triangle is annoying and confusing. Both of Araby’s purported love interests are just . . . awkward. Both with her as their respective interest and, well, in general. And while Araby’s not what one might consider to be gifted in the social graces herself, she’s at least moderately socially aware. Her actions are at once weird and self-absorbed while also self-protective, as she clings to her morbid obsession with her brother’s death years earlier.

3. Araby’s immature response to her brother’s death is inconsistent. One might assume that she’s going to be hurt and scarred by it for the rest of her life, but that doesn’t really mean she has to be a drug addict/alcoholic in doing so. That she blames her parents for it, and respects them less as a result of it, is also unfair. Additionally, her vow–not to experience anything that her brother didn’t have the chance to–is almost laughable in it’s hit-and-miss application in her life. It becomes her go-to excuse for not experiencing any kind of intimacy, but beyond that Araby seems to feel no need to apply it. I’m pretty certain her brother didn’t get a chance to party all night, experiment with drugs, drink, wear extravagant clothes, ride in a steam carriage, etc. But those aren’t concerns for her. One boy trying to hold her hand, though? Enough for a full-on guilt-laden panic attack. Hm.

4. There is a lot happening in the city that’s just blatantly . . . wrong. And while I understand that we’re dealing with a different time in a different place with different laws and expectations, I have a lot of difficulty swallowing that an entire society would just accept what Prospero’s thrust upon them. Especially when it means the death of countless thousands.

5. There are a lot of loose ends, presumably tied up in the second book, but which I’m not sure the purpose of which are. Old men who hang out harassing Araby at the Debauchery Club? The concierge that Araby tries to get a mask for and eventually sends on his way? The diseased-but-not-dead living in the marsh? The sacrifices that Elliot eluded to by the marsh dwellers? The purpose of Will to the story? The wild, rogue bats? The list goes on and on–and I’m not certain that answers are forthcoming, but I suppose I must reserve judgment until I read the next installment.

Overall:

So I guess, after taking more time to really hash through my own thoughts, I’m really not completely sold on this. I really want to love it, but there are a number of annoyances that keep nagging at me. As an avid Poe lover, though, I’ll probably pick up the next book. And if you’re willing to give it a chance–and suspend a lot of disbelief–this is a pretty engaging read.

What do you think? Anyone read this and find Araby more pleasant than I?

Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher” Revisited in Bethany Griffin’s Gothic Romp, The Fall

It’s dark. It’s moody. It’s temperamental and even prone to tantrums. It wants what it wants and won’t settle for less. Am I talking about a teen you know? Nope–just Bethany Griffin’s interpretation of the infamous House of Usher in her latest work, The Fall.

The house is falling apart, people from all over have heard of it but are terrified of it. And just as in any good gothic tale, it’s rife with ghosts, spirits, spiders, and possibly a kraken or two for good measure. (I mean, really, why not?). It’s also overwhelmed with a familial curse, too many doctors for anyone’s good, and a solid line of insanity. While this may sound like a Bravo special, it’s really a solitary tale, following Madeline Usher (of the infamous Poe tale, The Fall of the House of Usher) from childhood through adolescence. (Again, as expected with all good gothic tales, the protagonist can not be older than a maiden of hundreds of years ago.)

The book is as dark and melancholy as the house itself is, and it can’t be an accident that the author structured it to mimic in some ways the connection/disconnection with time that Madeline references throughout the story, flipping back and forth between different time periods in her life. Also, the book’s broken into really short chapters, which I thought an excellent tool not only for creating a constant sense of insecurity in the reader (with the regular flips in time, it seems as though things are constantly changing, which creates an untethered relationship to time).

In many ways, the style of writing felt reminiscent to me of Micol Ostow’s Amity, which was published at roughly the same time and did the same flipping back and forth between time periods using short chapters in order to create a greater sense of reader unease. In terms of period books, I was actually quite impressed with the author’s writing style. I was worried she was going to take it in the direction of Megan Shepherd’s The Madman’s Daughter (another spin off YA Lit book, this time of the H.G. Wells classic, The Island of Dr. Moreau), which was an insipid reimagining that I was completely unable to finish. Instead, Ms. Griffin artfully avoids this and leaves romance on the side–thank heavens! There is so much strangeness happening here already that further complications would simply be distractions.

As a fan of Kelly Creagh’s Nevermore series, which features Poe as a semi-character himself, as well as an inspiration for a number of other characters and events in the series, I was curious whether Ms. Griffin was headed in a similar direction. However, The Fall really seems to just fill in the large empty spaces surrounding Poe’s own story, creating something that is at once new while remaining familiar.

What I Liked About the Book:

1. The new and familiar thing again. Already hashed out above, but deserves space here. I really liked that she focused on the parts of the original story that were holes to begin with, rather than just adding color to what already existed, and that she didn’t insist on separating the “reality” of the story as it stands and just taking familiar names and relocating them in an entirely different story. This was a nice balance.

2. The short chapters. Love it. Keeps the pages moving, which is a huge aspect of building up the tension (especially because there’s not really much scary here–it’s really focused on the strange and obscurely odd instead).

3. Madeline is shut away from the world–part of her familial curse–but is unable to leave the house as a result of both the curse and her parents’ decisions. As a result, she’s pretty darn unworldly and naive. I felt Ms. Griffin did a fair job of portraying her as someone who isn’t stupid, but who isn’t worldly enough to be able to fully understand the complex subtleties of other people. She was also pretty well aware of her own personal limitations along the way, both in terms of social skills as well as general worldliness.

4.  Basically every classic gothic trope that exists is thrown into this one. Yet, while the resident ghost coming into contact with the protagonist may be sufficient enough for most tales to be the main point, it’s not even a deal in this book. Madeline runs into many ghosts, it’s all simply accepted and taken for granted that they’re there and she’s there and so it will continue to be. Her bigger fish to fry is the house, and the story keeps us focused on that relationship.

5. The tale itself is about madness, and the question of how much to accept as madness v. how much can potentially be controlled/changed/manipulated. By not giving into our 21st century expectations, Ms. Griffin retains the feel of the original Poe tale, keeping the focus on the question that lingers throughout the books, as it did in the original story: how much of this to believe, and how much is simply insanity?

What I Didn’t Like So Much:

1. Honestly, could have done without the suggestions of incest. However, at the same time, they weren’t overdone, either, and there is a lingering question of incest in the original tale, so it didn’t much bother me.

2, Kind of creeped out by the doctor situation. They randomly have technology for machines, but they’re using animal intestine tubes? I dunno. It felt like a strange turn towards an almost steampunk feel that was definitely not a vibe that worked well with the rest of the story. Also, the idea of a love interest in a dude who’s creepily stalking about the house all the time and sees you naked to examine you and stuff? Not feeling it.

3. There were a few points I was confused on. So the house somehow stopped Madeline’s father from taking her away from the house? How, exactly? I remember something about illness and nightmares, but if it was that tragic, one would think a doctor’s visit before returning back to that from whence you came would be preferable?

4. Random, huge Kraken in the moat? Really? Again, I dig the gothic-ness of the story, but that took it a bit farther than I was willing to accept it, even. Also, it seems Madeline picks and chooses when she’s concerned about what the house is thinking. She has no qualms breaking a wall to release whatever’s whining inside it, but at other times she’s scared to even move furniture? Same inconsistency with the house: the house gives her a dog to keep her company, but then has it’s kraken take the dog somehow under the house? Huh?

5. How does Madeline know of things like romance when her brother’s gone, she can’t really read, her parents are dead, the servants won’t speak to her, the doctors won’t talk of anything with her but health-related matters and she doesn’t know anyone else? She gets these random romantic flights of fantasy, but they don’t seem to come from knowledge/experience, just from. . . well, I’m not sure, but they come.

6. Roderick’s kind of a jackass. And Madeline’s savvy enough to pretty much know this, but love him anyway. Granted, in the constant how-much-is-real-and-how-much-is-fantasy feel to the whole thing, it’s easy to conclude that it may or may not be actually Roderick acting this way; that it may just be an illusion based on what the house wants Madeline (and thus us) to see. But that’s not really consistent, either, as the house seems to want them together (possibly with a child?), which means the house’s best interest would be for Roderick to be around and to care about what’s happening in the house. Somewhat confusing, that.

7. Madeline is pretty passive for a YA Lit heroine. And that was ok for me, in light of the setting of the story and it’s overall gothic mood/feel, but in relation to common YA Lit heroines, this may be a bit much to tolerate.

Overall:

I really enjoyed this book, and honestly went into it pretty much expecting it to kind of suck. Yes, there are a number of little inconsistencies, but they are all generally pretty little. And because sanity is such an overarching issue, there’s plenty of wiggle room as to what the reader may be willing to accept. The pages flew, the characters are fairly consistent, but the greatest character of all here–the house itself–is the one who’s the unpredictable surprise for the entire story.

Anyone else out there pick up this one? Any fans of Poe/Poe spin-offs?

Death, Ghosts, Monsters, and Mayhem: Emily Carroll’s Graphic Novel, Through the Woods, is Chilling!

Though I laud the use of graphic novels as a tool to encourage reticent readers to, well, read more, I don’t often read them myself. On rare occasion, though,  one will catch my eye, and then I’m riveted and forced to enjoy beautiful illustrations to go along with an intriguing story. So when I was at the library and saw Emily Carroll’s tome, Though the Woods, and briefly flipped through a few of the pages, there was no avoiding it: it had to come home with me to be digested, contemplated and generally enjoyed at my own leisure. (Especially because my grad classes are assigning painfully boring reading right now–what’s not to love in a graphic novel?)

The book consists of a series of short stories that feel like folk tales, but which the book’s synopsis explains are of the author’s own writing. Each is a stand-alone story, none building on the other as some short story collections tend to do. The pages are richly illustrated in dark, bold colors (as one might expect from the given subject matter). And each story is it’s own element of creepy. The pictures not only serve to “show” the story as it’s told, but are integrated into the telling of the story, making them essential to understanding what’s happening.

In terms of the stories themselves, I thought that they were fairly well done. I mean, I can’t imagine that one would read a graphic novel exclusively for the quality of the story, though one could here. I did find some of the stories to be a bit predictable, but they’re pretty darn short, so you’re not wasting hours of reading time to get to the end of the story in order to learn something you already knew. Each story is a creepy little tale, involving the macabre, the deathly or the flat out scary. What’s more, each feels like it’s been influenced by well-known gothic writers, and that’s more what they feel like–gothic reads–more so than horror. I definitely found them to be channeling Poe, Gilman and  Hawthorne, though I felt that one could also point to influences more modern, like Stephen King. However, I felt that most of these read like dark, gothic fairy tales, and the illustrations really hammered this idea in.

Speaking of illustrations, as noted, they are bold, nicely done, and certainly add to the story itself, fleshing out characters that would otherwise take quite a few more words to describe. The author uses them to convey action as well as emotion, so in many ways they tell the story themselves. Notably, they also spare no details, so if you’re squeamish, be forewarned.

Overall, I thought this was a lovely little collection. It’s a pretty fast read (much is illustration, so it goes quickly) and is certainly one of the most page-turning graphic books that I’ve come across! If you like the creepy and scary, this one is definitely worth trying, perhaps to take a break from other, more onerous reading (just as I did).

What do you think? Any other fans of graphic novels out there? Preferences for things you prefer in your graphic novel?

Quoth the Raven: Read Jessica Verday’s Of Monsters and Madness (but Expect Lots of Unanswered Questions)

Now answer me this: who in the world would have possibly imagined a period gothic romance between Edgar Allan Poe and Annabel Lee would end in a cliffhanger?

Having just stayed up til all hours of the night (don’t worry! No ravens were knocking, no buried hearts beating, no angels glowering) finishing Jessica Verday’s Of Monsters and Madness, I do have to stay this: the book’s a true page-turner, and a smooth read at that. It also breaks with what seems to be a trend in YA Lit: that all books be monster-sized or at least appear to be a palatable length but  then have microscopic print.

As I’ve noted in previous posts, this is one of the books being released this fall that plays with the memory of Poe. The story follows Annabel Lee (yes, that Annabel Lee) as a young woman forced to leave Siam, where she’s been working with missionaries with her mother, to meet for the first time and live with her father in Philadelphia. Just as in any good crazy scientist story, her father is seemingly immeasurably wealthy (though I recall no suggestion as to how this money came to be) and very unfriendly. Annabel’s a winning personality, with a somewhat predictable mix of intelligence and education in places one would not expect along with an overly self-conscious bent.

From the minute she steps onto the docks, she is seemingly made aware of the fact that she is an outsider; she’s someone who doesn’t understand the people, the culture, the ways of the world. For the servants of the household, this is fine: they are at once helpful and (dare I say?) sympathetic to Annabel’s plight, though for reasons that are unclear. At the dock she meets Maddy, the woman who’s to be her dressing maid, as well as Allan Poe, her father’s assistant, to whom she feels a quick connection (possibly because he rescues her, but perhaps a little more than that).

The news in the air of Philadelphia is that there’s a murderer on the loose, committing heinous crimes about the city. It is with this backdrop that Annabel is greeted at home, where she realizes that her father is less than the kindly individual she had hoped for. However, his deficiencies are somewhat made up for by the friendly staff and her grandfather, who is nothing but kindness and patience to his only grandchild.

The longer Annabel remains in the house, though, the more aware she becomes of the secrets lining virtually every nook and cranny. She meets Edgar, her father’s “other” assistant, learns her father has his own laboratory in the basement and starts putting pieces of this puzzle together as she learns more and more about the people around her and the place she’s in.

The cliffhanger ending leads me to believe that this book is going to have a sequel of some sort in which the story is continued and in which we can perhaps see an answer to a number of the questions left open-ended here.

What I Liked About the Story:

Who doesn’t love a great Poe tale? Not only do his works make great and creative pieces to re-imagine, but the idea of including him as a character in and of himself adds an additional layer of intrigue. Also, unlike Kelly Creagh’s Nevermore series, I had no difficulty trying to conceptualize where Poe himself fell into the story, which is one of the issues I’ve had with Ms. Creagh’s work.

I appreciated the allusions to great gothic works: not just some of Poe’s most famous pieces (including “The Raven.” “The Fall of the House of Usher,” and, of course, “Annabel Lee”), but also a heavy leaning on Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Further, Ms. Verday does a laudable job of weaving them in through Allan, who seems immediately comfortable with sharing his labor of love (writing) with Annabel.

What’s more, I found this to be much better and more strongly narrated than the last period piece I picked up, The Madman’s Daughter, which became a frustrating tale to work through due to both a combination of laughable inconsistencies in the protagonist as well as poor editing. The editing in this book is generally well done, with few enough mistakes as to not make it distracting to the reader.

Finally, and this is going to sound gruesome but I’ll just go with it, I appreciated the fact that the author didn’t seem to shy away from the blood and guts that I think many YA authors get squeamish about. I find this difficult to understand, perhaps in light of what’s playing on television/in the movies that these same audiences watch. I have to assume that the mention of blood in a book isn’t going to cause nightmares. I’m not sure how reading about it to paint a picture with words is less appropriate than seeing the picture painted for you in all it’s gory detail on a screen.

What I Didn’t Like:

Though this is virtually never a complaint of mine as I prefer to be in the “now” of the story rather than thinking into the future of it, it was incredibly predictable. Within the first two chapters I was generally able to see what was going to happen and how the story would unfold, perhaps with the exception of how the book itself would end.

There are a lot of places where there’s a new mystery presented, but the mystery is never resolved. A few:

1. Annabel has significant scars from an infant surgery, but why? And why is her mother so convinced she needs to hide them at all costs? (And if she must, why not just have her wear high-necked dresses rather than a scarf, even in the summer?)

2. Annabel’s father abandoned her mother and his infant daughter. With suggestions reminiscent of Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, Annabel and her mother have to flee England, resulting in their move to Siam. But why would he leave and abandon them? And why doesn’t Annabel fault her father for this as a young adult–for putting her and her mother in that position? And why would she then believe that he decided to invite her back into his life, out of nowhere?

3. Why won’t grandfather just shoot straight with Annabel about her dad? And why doesn’t she press him harder to learn the truth, when it’s repeatedly suggested that she knows she’s not being told everything?

4.  Annabel spent most of her life in Siam, but her mother didn’t. While Siam in the early 1800’s may have run primarily on a barter system, England didn’t. Annabel’s mother knew they were (or at least Annabel was) headed to America–why would she not have at least attempted to teach Annabel basics like money, manners, dress, etc?

5. In one scene, Maddy is crying about her lost locket, yet she seems to completely forget about it within the next scene. By the end of the tale, it seems to have been accepted as lost and no longer cause for concern, yet Annabel knows where it is, but seems to make no attempt to retrieve it. I don’t know why this point bothered me so much, but it just really seemed out of character for both Annabel and Maddy.

6. Annabel herself is horribly conscientious about displeasing her father in some ways (her bow rather than a curtsy, her skin tone, not wasting his money at market, etc) but in other ways she willfully ignores that which he pointedly tells her not to do and that she can control (going into his lab, practicing medicine, sneaking around at night, etc). This is a frustrating contradiction, especially for a purportedly intelligent young woman.

7. The romantic aspect of the book is cute, but very sudden, with very little build up. It seems as though Annabel and Allan have spent maybe a grand total of 10 minutes or so together before he’s telling her that he’s “lost in [her],” which is both weird and a little creepy. Annabel also seems to decide propriety in matters of the heart unnecessary, and while she’s demure enough to request a chaperone for walks, she apparently has no issues with making out with a virtual stranger in the library. Hm.

8. Finally, the murder victims all seem to have one pretty obvious link (I’m trying not to spoil the whole book but it’s hard), yet despite this being the biggest news happening in Philadelphia, the police can’t figure this out?

On one last note, I have some difficulty understanding the cover. I have no idea how it relates to the story itself, as I recall no part of the story that this could potentially relate to. This is something of a shame, as I do think there are a number of other images that would have been just as creepy and allowed the author the opportunity to express her story better.

Overall:

I actually enjoyed reading this book quite a bit because, despite some inconsistencies and a number of unanswered questions, I generally found the characters engaging, the plot fast-moving, and the question of what exactly’s going to happen next sufficient to keep me glued. I think this is a story wherein the author could have slowed the narrative a bit and lingered on exploring the details and building up the characters more (plus maybe slowing down the romantic aspect of this–it all seems so sudden, especially for 1820’s lifestyles). Yes, it is (even for me) pretty predictable and yes, there are a number of Huh? moments, but the story itself is good and the blend of telling stories within stories is fascinating, especially for gothic/Poe fans out there.

Anyone else had a chance to read this yet? Any big fans of Poe excited for the Poe-centric reads being released in YA Lit?