Creepy dolls

Dolls are creepy. And what's even creepier is if dolls find their way in the hands of Susan Hill. Yes, Hill of The Woman in Black fame has a new ghost story, and it involves decaying house, two young cousins, and lots of Gothic atmosphere. I knew at the onset that I would like this.

In Dolly, we meet Edward Cayley, an orphan, who would spend one summer at his Aunt Kestrel's creepy house in Iyot Lock. Edward would be spending the summer with his cousin, Leonora von Vorst. While the two children almost have the same ages, they couldn't be more different. Edward is pensive and sensitive, and Leonora is terribly spoiled.

Everything seems to be quite an uneventful summer, notwithstanding Leonora's tantrums and complaints. But this is a ghost story after all, and there must be a turning point for these innocuous happenings. In this novel, everything changes on Leonora's birthday, when Aunt Kestrel presents Leonora with a beautiful lifelike doll. But it's not what Leonora had in mind though. Leonora then flings the doll to the wall, cracking its porcelain face and storms out of the room. Edward takes it upon himself to get rid of the doll by burying it outside the house.

Years pass and Edward recalls the many times he has spent other summers at his aunt's. Leonora, on the other hand, never returns. It's only upon the death of Aunt Kestrel when the two meet again to discuss the terms of the will. It appears that their aunt has left everything to Edward. And what about Leonora? She gets the doll her aunt gave her on her 9th birthday. Edward shows Leonora where he buried the doll and reveals it. What was inside the box shocked them. The doll has aged in all those years it was under the ground.

Dolly doesn't stop here though. We get to read how Edward has suffered many sleepless nights hearing a disturbig sound, a sound made by someone, or something, scraping on paper. Edward knows that it's the buried doll, of course. It's calling out to him, as if it were asking him to set it free.

In the novel's final chapters, we get to know how Leonora runs out of money and asks Edward to give her the house. She's down on her luck—divorced, with a 2-year-old baby daughter, and without money. Edward, now a successful man, agrees to have Leonora stay at Iyot Lock. But then makes a very unwise decision. He finds an intricate Indian princess doll in one of his trips and gives it to Leonora. She wouldn't accept it though, and sends it back to him. When he opens the package from Leonora, what the doll looks like now would haunt him. Gone were its beautiful Indian features. The doll now had the features of a crone.

Dolly is one chilling read. Like her other ghost stories, it's almost like a novella at 150 pages. It doesn't quite hold up to the scariness of The Woman in Black, the bleak mood of The Small Hand, or the sense of dread of The Man in the Picture. But it's still a very satisfying read. I just hope that Susan Hill never stops coming out with ghost stories.

Read this book if:

1. You love short scary reads.
2. You know that dolls are creepy.
3. You'll read anything by Susan Hill.

And yet another ghost story

After reading The Woman in Black, which a lot of people mention as the most terrifying ghost story of our time, I decided to read another ghost story which has been lately generating a lot of buzz. And it's Michelle Paver's first ever book for adults, a ghost story entitled Dark Matter. Yes, it's the same author who wrote Chronicles of Ancient Darkness.

Unlike most ghost stories, Dark Matter is set in the Arctic wilderness, which can literally drive people crazy with its overwhelming sense of isolation. But when you think about it, the barren frozen region is perfect for tales involving hauntings. Where else can you find a setting that is enveloped in complete darkness for several months?

In Paver's debut into adult fiction, she has chosen a protagonist named Jack Miller, who has enlisted for an expedition to Norway with four upperclass English gentlemen. The expedition is doomed even from the start, as it's riddled with accidents, unfortunate circumstances, and pitfalls, which have resulted in Jack being left alone in a very isolated region of the Arctic called Gruhuken. And when the seasons finally shift to one characterized by perpetual nighttime, that's when the hauntings begin for Jack.

The ghost in Dark Matter is the spirit of a former explorer who has been tortured and killed. When Jack first sees him in the daytime and tells the captain of the boat about it, he only gets statements of denial about the man's existence. No one seems to want to talk about this man. Of course, in ghost stories, this technique isn't anything new; natives are not always keen to talk about their town's resident ghosts. In Dark Matter, the crew of the ship that has taken Jack and his companions refuse to stay in Gruhuken no longer than necessary. This bit I found just a bit too predictable for my taste.

Nevertheless, the novel is indeed hair raising in some moments. It's the kind of book that features an old-fashioned kind of horror. There's no gore, no monsters ripping people's bodies, no verbal pyrotechnics. Paver's brand of horror is the same as Hill's. The first encounter with the ghost is innocuous, the succeeding ones turn into a creepy menace. Paver's sense of place is wonderful to read. One cannot feel a slight chill as she describes the unkind icy northern region.

With Paver's brilliant description of setting, her controlled scenes of horror, and her detailed narrative, Dark Matter succeeds not just as a ghost story, but as a period piece and an account of one man's journey into terror and madness.

Read this book if:

1. Ghost stories are your thing.
2. You're fascinated with the Arctic regions.
3. People don't believe you when you tell them you've seen a ghost.
   

We all need a good scare sometimes

Telling ghost stories with your group of friends or family on a cold night has become something of a cultural cliché. But who says that just because it's a cliché, it has to be boring, no? I think that it's a great way to bond and be scared shitless by one another's tales of the supernatural. And if there's one great story to share with your friends, it's Susan Hill's classic novella, The Woman in Black.

Arthur Kipps, the main character, has been sent to the estate of one recently deceased Mrs Alice Drablow of Eel House Marsh. Kipps has been sent to arrange whatever papers Mrs Drablow may have left and also to attend to her funeral. During the funeral, Kipps sees a woman in black, a figure whom he refuses to believe at first to be a ghost. But unknown to Kipps, once you see this woman, things start to go wrong your way. For one, her appearance, it is revealed later in the novel, causes the death of a child.

As a ghost story, The Woman in Black succeeds in a very subtle way. Hill doesn't give you the horror angle in one go. The haunting happens in small stages, as if Hill teases her readers and motivates them to further read into the story despite the knowledge that something bad will eventually happen. It's a creepy read beginning at page 1. The ghost that is the woman in black is also unveiled gradually. Kipps sees her at the funeral and eventually at Eel House Marsh only to realize that she is indeed a ghost, one that is hellbent on vengeance.

Stereotypes in gothic horror fiction are in full force here, but are used in a very controlled maner. The isolated and crumbling Eel House Marsh never comes off as campy. The thick mist that surrounds the marsh simply adds to the element of dread. The hauntings do not go into the physical, merely just an invasion of space inhabited by the living. The dog who expectedly detects the presence of the ghost becomes a good companion of Kipps, not just something employed by the writer to signal the arrival of the ghostly presence.

With all the horror novels that I've read, it takes more than the usual to get me scared. For all its moments of subtle horror and intermittent scenes of dread, The Woman in Black is one work of fiction that creeped me out.

Read this book if:

1. Ghost stories are your thing.
2. You love women in black.
3. You're alone on a cold night.
   

***

For this month, the book club discussed The Woman in Black in our face-to-face meeting. I was fortunate enough to moderate the discussion. Judging from the reactions of those who attended, a lot of us liked Hill's short but satisfying ghost story. Here's to good friends, great book talks, and scary stories!

The members of Flips Flipping Pages who attended the discussion.

Notice that most of them are wearing black. I'm the one in pink.

In gothic novels, women faint a lot

If there's one genre that I will never tire of reading, it would have to be gothic fiction. There's something about decaying houses, evil nuns and monks, ghostly apparitions, and gloomy weather that make for a very cozy and engaging read. So what better choice than to finish THE gothic novel that started it all -- Horace Walpole's The Castle of Otranto.

In Walpole's short but pithy novel, the castle is decrepit and is home to Manfred, the current lord. Manfred is a character straight out of the traditional school of villainy. He's manipulative, abusive, and crazy. You know that something is just not right with Manfred's mind when he decides to marry the intended bride for his son, who has just died in the castle. Never mind that he already has a wife, for he thinks that he can always divorce her and force her to spend her remaining days in an abbey.

The bride Isabella escapes with the help of a mysterious character named Theodore, who turns out to be the rightful heir of Otranto. This isn't enough to make the reader's head spin though, for Walpole subtlety is nonexistent. In The Castle of Otranto, it is revealed that Theodore is the son of a friar (gasp!), that Otranto murders his own daughter thinking that it was Isabella, that two men can decide to marry each other's daughters as if it's an innocuous thing, and that Theodore marries Isabella in the end not because he loves her but because Isabella can relate to his sorrow.

The Castle of Otranto is over the top, I'm telling you. It's like written by someone who's both high on drugs and has a severe hangover. But, dear reader, the novel works! We know that this circumstances will appear to be just hysterical in today's prosaic world. But in the 18th century, these events are what make a novel truly gripping.

A best seller when it was published in 1764, The Castle of Otranto has proven to be a very seminal work in gothic fiction, inspiring writers such as Stoker, Radcliffe, Poe, and even Du Maurier in the gothic tradition. If you're truly a fan of gothic fiction, then reading The Castle of Otranto is a given. The novel, which just a little over 100 pages, is one that novel that never fails to entertain, to shock, and, with its convoluted and highly improbable plot, to amaze.

Read this book if:

1. You're a big fan of gothic fiction.
2. You love novels set in crumbling castles.
3. You're in the mood for something totally over the top.