Month: November 2008

A classic haunted house story is given a gentle face-lift by mistress of modern horror Deborah Noyes, who, with just a few tugs and some careful reconstruction, has created a glowing new work that does tremendous tribute to the original.  Turn-of-the-century American novelist Edith Wharton wrote “Kerfol” in 1916, a short story about a controlling French lord who kept his young wife practically imprisoned within Kerfol, his forbidding Baroque mansion. He refused to allow Milady even the comfort of a pet, and because of his suspicions that she was having an affair, ruthlessly murdered each dog she tried to keep in secret. Then the lord turns up dead, seemingly mauled by a pack of dogs. Except, there are no dogs at Kerfol…none left alive, that is…First Noyes took Wharton’s story and re-imagined it from the point of view of a young maid who worked in Milady’s service, interweaving her own writing with some of Wharton’s original phrases and dialogue. Then she moves forward in time to show how future generations continue to be haunted by the ghosts of Kerfol. Right after the French Revolution, a young artist who inherits Kerfol is tormented by the beautiful image of a woman he can’t stop painting, and the pack of sad-eyed dogs who follow him everywhere yet refuse to be touched. In 1926, a spoiled flapper meets her doom when she dons Milady’s cursed sapphire necklace. In 1982, a college-aged couple on a European tour awaken the vengeful spirit of the jealous lord when they engage in an illicit tryst in his former bedchamber. Finally, in 2006, the spirits seem to settle into an uneasy rest after a deaf young gardener finds and removes the cursed necklace from the manor grounds. Or, will the restless ghosts just follow the jewels to their new home and continue to haunt the young man? Like the linked sparkling gems in Milady’s necklace, each of Noyes’s stories is a small masterpiece, gracefully strung together by interwoven themes of bitter betrayal, sweet revenge and tempting madness. This gorgeously Gothy title is a just-right read for a blustery November night—or anytime you want to give yourself a delicious shiver!

There’s nothing I love more than a good Arthurian legend. And Philip Reeve has written a slammin’ one! In this realistic revamp, Myrddin (Merlin) is a smooth-talking two-bit politician, a slight-of-hand bard who knows there’s no such thing as magic, only human gullibility and greed. He takes a promising young warrior named Arthur and attempts to use his savage talent to unite the squabbling tribes of Britain, who have fractured into a million warring pieces after the fall of the Roman Empire. But despite all of Myrddin’s efforts to groom the brutish Arthur into something resembling a king, the man known as “The Bear” refuses to be tamed. Arthur continues to loot and terrorize neighboring communities just like the barbarian Saxons he has sworn to protect them from, even as Myrddin grows his legend as a fair and just leader throughout the land. Myrddin’s masterful manipulations and Arthur’s violent exploits are seen through the eyes of Myrddin’s young assistant Gwyna, an orphan girl who becomes an unwitting accomplice in the creation of the enduring, yet wholly man-made legend of Arthur. The players you know well are all here: Gwenhwyfar (Guinevere) Bedwyr (Lancelot) Peredur (Perceval) and of course, the wily Myrddin. Except in this reimagining, there is no fantasy to blunt the sharp edge of Arthur’s broadsword Caliburn (Excalibur). Reeve removes the gilded edges from the traditional Arthur tales and writes Camelot the way it might have been in a real time and place. The result is bleak, and often bloody, but brilliant. If you are as obsessed with Arthurian myth as I am, you’ll also want to read Kevin Crossley-Holland’s and Jane Yolen’s versions of the legendary king.