This collection of short stories from Irish writer Sheridan
Le Fanu varies in length, narration and style. They deal with vampires in Styria,
legal malpractice in London, a strange man stalking his victim through the
streets of Dublin. What unites them all is play with the supernatural and
uncanny. Initial scepticism and a trust in the ‘scientific’ is increasingly
unsettled and undermined as Le Fanu leaves us with no clear answers. These are ‘ghost’
stories which linger both in their telling and in their effect. Don’t expect
horror movie shocks and twists. But draw up to the fireside this December to be
more disturbed than entertained.
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| Sheridan Le Fanu |
For general readers: In a Glass Darkly is an uneven
experience and its strange narrative structure, as a series of loosely connected
stories collected by a shadowy doctor (Dr Hesselius), may be off-putting to readers
used to more traditional Victorian novels, but there is much here to interest a
non-academic audience. The scepticism about the supernatural which pervades the
novel, almost in spite of its content, is readily recognisable to modern
reader, while the connection between the conscience or subconscious and the onset
of hallucination and mania which the stories often suggest is one which is
easily recognisable, even if this means the stories lose something of their ground-breaking
edge. ‘Carmilla’ will probably have the widest popular appeal, dealing as it
does with a form of vampirism with overtly erotic lesbian overtones. It’s the
kind of story which confounds common misconceptions about the ‘Victorian’. The
other longer story, ‘The Room at the Dragon Volant’, has similar character
interest, especially given its hero’s actions are far from morally
uncomplicated.
For students: As
well as being an interesting read, ‘Carmilla’ will also be of interest to
students of the Gothic and Bram Stoker in particular, predating as it does Dracula (1897), for which it provided
some inspiration. Those interested in the impact of Swedenborgism on literature
should turn to ‘Green Tea’, the first story in the volume, where the apparition
of a phantom monkey also suggests interesting Darwinian contexts. And
comparison with Charles Dickens’s short stories could also work, both in terms
of structure (see my earlier discussion of MrsLirriper) and in some cases content – the judgement undergone by Justice
Harbottle here makes the ghostly apparition which appear to Scrooge in A
Christmas Carol seem almost cuddly.
What should the Secret Victorianist read next? Let me know here, on Facebook or by tweeting @SVictorianist!
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