Is Anyone Else Enjoying Any Horror/Thriller Classics this Hallowe'en?

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Is Anyone Else Enjoying Any Horror/Thriller Classics this Hallowe'en?

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1Gail.C.Bull
okt 25, 2012, 5:15 pm

Every Hallowe'en I make a point of reading at least one classic horror/thriller novel.

My local bookstore had a great "3-for" deal on horror and thriller classics this year, so I picked up The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde: and Other Strange Tales by Robert Louis Stevenson, and Dracula by Bram Stoker.

Last year, I read Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft-Shelley. Is anyone else indulging in a little seasonal scare fest?

2madpoet
okt 25, 2012, 8:43 pm

I think I'll read some classic Victorian ghost stories. Something delightfully gothic...

3LesMiserables
okt 25, 2012, 9:16 pm

> Thrawn Janet by Stevenson is one chiller I like from that era.

4.Monkey.
okt 26, 2012, 6:07 am

Horror is my favorite genre, books & movies alike. So since I get plenty of it year-round, I never really go out of my way to read it for Halloween. I did just check out Invasion of the Body Snatchers from the library, because I happened to notice it on the shelf (and in a non-English language library such finds are not so common! haha), as well as Monster of Florence - which is apparently true crime about a serial killer. So I will probably go with Body Snatchers next (have a few pages left of The Jungle Book at the moment!). Happy coincidence? :)

5Gail.C.Bull
okt 26, 2012, 7:33 am

Lots of great Hallowe'en reading suggestions. I have to start making my list for next year.

>I thought I knew about most of Stevenson's thriller stories, but I hadn't heard of Thrawn Janet before. I'll have to put that on my TBR list.

>4 .Monkey.:: The Monster of Florence looks really good. Thanks for suggesting it.

6.Monkey.
okt 26, 2012, 8:08 am

You're welcome! I tend to just browse around in the English section, seeing what catches my eye. This one happened to be next to another author I enjoyed, and the title definitely piqued my interest, then cover text only furthered it! :)

7Cecrow
okt 26, 2012, 11:52 am

Last year I read Jekyll and Hyde; it was collected with some others I haven't gotten to, but I remember Thrawn Janet was the one of them most praised in the introduction. This year it was Frankenstein, which surprised me in several (good) respects.

8cyderry
okt 26, 2012, 5:02 pm

My book club did Dracula.

9kac522
okt 28, 2012, 2:34 am

#8--cyderry--What did you think of Dracula? Our book club is doing it, too, and we meet on Halloween. I can't get past the first 100 pages. I'm afraid I'll be the only one there who didn't like it. I guess I feel like there's enough horror on the nightly news--I don't need it in my recreational reading....oh well.

10Booksloth
okt 28, 2012, 7:23 am

#9 I don't think you'll be the only one, kac522. When I did it at uni it was generally agreed to be rather poorly written and somewhat turgid, though it does have an aquired charm. If you're looking for classics, Frankenstein is a much better book.

11.Monkey.
okt 28, 2012, 8:33 am

I disagree completely, I found Dracula a very quick fun read.

12LibraryPerilous
okt 28, 2012, 1:23 pm

I usually do read Dracula around the end of October--and watch Tim Burton's The Nightmare before Christmas--but this year I am branching out with Wieland, by Charles Brockden Brown.

#11: I second this! (But the prose is rather purplish, as seems to befit the genre itself.)

13Gail.C.Bull
okt 28, 2012, 4:13 pm

I really enjoyed Frankenstein when I read it last year. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it surpassed my expectations and couldn't put it down.

I'm expecting lots of fear of foreigners, sex as the ultimate evil, and all sorts of other Victorian-style paranoias from Dracula. I haven't read it yet, so I have yet to see how off the mark I am.

14.Monkey.
okt 28, 2012, 5:20 pm

>13 by @LovelyPride, Well now I am certainly curious to know what you think after!

15Porua
okt 28, 2012, 11:23 pm

I, for one, love Dracula, with all its faults.

This Halloween I've read Ghost Stories of an Antiquary by M. R. James. Will try to finish at least one other Halloween read before the actual 'Halloween'!

16LesMiserables
okt 29, 2012, 2:03 am

Dracula is a very good read. I do enjoy epistolary novels.

17.Monkey.
okt 29, 2012, 6:49 am

>15 by Porua, Hear hear! It does have faults, of course, but I disagree with 9/10 about it entirely. Its faults, as far as I'm concerned, are all directly connected to the time in which it was written, and hence can be overlooked (for the most part, at least).

18Booksloth
okt 29, 2012, 7:07 am

I should add that I'm actually quite fond of Dracula now but on the first read its faults far outweighed its pleasures for me. (And I stand by what I said about Frankenstein).

19.Monkey.
okt 29, 2012, 7:31 am

>18 by Booksloth, Have you read her Maurice, or The Fisher's Cot, that was only just discovered about 15 years ago? I haven't yet gotten to Frankenstein but I noticed that one in the library and just had to investigate it; it was a great short read, and all the history included with it was very interesting!

20Booksloth
okt 29, 2012, 7:46 am

#19 Not yet but I plan to one day. Thanks for the heads-up!

21.Monkey.
okt 29, 2012, 9:48 am

Oh you shouldn't put it off! It's rather short and a simple read, due to its being a children's story, so it's quite quick. But good! :)

22Fred_R
okt 29, 2012, 6:04 pm

It's been a few years since I read Dracula. I recall that I enjoyed the first half of the book much more than the latter half. I was still having fun reading it, but ready for it to be over. Something that always amuses me somewhat about literature from that time period is that people sure were prone to developing "brain fever" after an emotional shock and then be bedridden for weeks at a time.

23Porua
nov 3, 2012, 4:34 am

Finished The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson just in time for Halloween but hadn't been able to review it till now.

My review is here,

http://www.librarything.com/review/91308712

24Gail.C.Bull
nov 3, 2012, 12:07 pm

I finished The Woman in White but I haven't reviewed it yet. It was a truly exciting mystery story because the mystery is happening in the present tense, so there's always that sense that if you could just figure it out in time, a tragedy might be prevented. But you don't know what the tragedy is or how it might be prevented which makes it even more agonizing (in a good way).

I started Dracula on Hallowe'en night (appropriate, yes?), but I'm not really enjoying it. I've just reached the end of Jonathan Harker's enforced stay at Dracula's castle, and I'm beginning to wonder if I'm going to bother to read the whole thing. Perhaps the vampire mythology is too well-known now to make this scary, but as Harker slowly discovers the Count's true identity I found myself getting impatient. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's climbing walls, and commanding wolves, and has no reflection. Get on with it." It strikes me that Stoker wasn't very good at building suspense.

25.Monkey.
nov 3, 2012, 12:33 pm

I don't think that's the case at all, I think it's merely what you said already - everyone knows how it goes. The whole time reading it I found myself wishing I'd somehow been able to read it before vampires (and Dracula himself) were so absurdly common, to be able to experience it how those in his time would have. Without knowing Dracula is a vampire before even picking it up, without knowing every bit of vampire mythos, etc. I think it would have been drastically different then. You've barely even started it, with where you're at. I'd never give up a book so early! I'd strongly advise to keep going, and to open your mind a bit.

26LesMiserables
nov 3, 2012, 5:46 pm

> 24

Go through the whole book: it is worth it in the end.

27Fred_R
nov 5, 2012, 12:57 pm

I'm reading some Wilkie Collins right now myself, The Moonstone. I'm only about a quarter of the way through. It's ok, but it hasn't really grabbed me. I guess part of it is that the whole time I'm reading, I'm thinking "Why didn't you snooty, imperialist bastiges just give the diamond back to the people from whom it was originally stolen?" But I've got a long way to go in the book yet, so we'll see how it turns out. :)

Re: Dracula
If you're not already familiar with Renfield's character, you might get a kick out him.

28Gail.C.Bull
nov 5, 2012, 9:10 pm

One potential Hallowe'en read that hasn't been discussed yet it The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux. I read that several years ago and really enjoyed it. I may have to revisit it one of these days.

29Porua
nov 6, 2012, 11:33 pm

# 27 Fred_R, "Why didn't you snooty, imperialist bastiges just give the diamond back to the people from whom it was originally stolen?"

I had the same feeling. In general I didn't really like The Moonstone. I wasn't exactly popular with a lot of people when I said so on my review.

30Gail.C.Bull
nov 8, 2012, 12:12 am

I've stuck with Dracula, but, for some reason, it just isn't gripping me. It's well-written and I can understand why it is a classic, but I'm not experiencing that, "I just can't put this book down" feeling that I've had with so many other classics. I agree with Booksloth; Frankenstein is a much better book. So is The Woman in White, for that matter.

31Fred_R
nov 8, 2012, 10:29 am

#29
I scanned through your review, and I think that over all we agree. I'll give it a closer look when I finish and don't need to be wary of spoilers. Not that I noticed any spoilers but I try to be extra careful.

32Gail.C.Bull
nov 8, 2012, 6:39 pm

#27: Reading your comments on Moonstone made me remember a line from Blackadder Goes Forth (a British TV series set during WWI): "When I joined up we were still fighting colonial wars. If you saw someone in a skirt, you shot him and nicked (stole) his country."

33Porua
nov 10, 2012, 1:22 am

#31 Fred_R, Thanks for looking at my review! Looking forward to your views on The Moonstone.

# 32 LovelyPride, Oh love Blackadder! My favourite remains the special they did for the new Millennium called Blackadder: Back & Forth. Rowan Atkinson is brilliant in everything he does.

34Fred_R
nov 19, 2012, 10:55 am

#33 Well, I got around to finishing The Moonstone over the weekend. It does seem needlessly drawn out. Maybe it's just my impatient modern sensibilities, or more likely the serial publication roots of this story. I think that's the same reason I'm not always that enamored of Dickens. I'm always telling myself that next time I read any Dickens I'm going to digest it in little chunks a few weeks apart and see if it makes the pace and meanderings any more tolerable.

Finally wrapping up Miss Clack's section of narration felt like the end of a prison sentence. Sweet relief! I had even paged forward to find the end of her chapter so I'd know when the goal was near. Her character was such a one-note joke that it soon wore thin. If Collins's intention was to make the reader feel the same sense of exasperation as her companions must have felt, then he succeeded admirably.

My earlier "snooty imperialist bastiges" sentiment aside — and Clack's section being too long by half, I thought it was still an enjoyable read. Considering how the book was sectioned up, the various characters still managed to be pretty well developed. The little bits of gently sarcastic 19th century British humo(u)r are a nice reminder that the story doesn't take itself too seriously. I don't read very many mysteries so I didn't find myself rolling my eyes at any tired old tropes. I suppose with The Moonstone being the granddaddy of English language mysteries, that would be a bit like complaining about Shakespeare being full of cliché phrases.

#32 I've heard of Blackadder, but never watched any of it. Sounds fun though.