The inky darkness of winter is descending and Halloween is casting forth it’s spooky shadows which makes it an excellent time to talk about the gothic novel. This is the genre that bursts at the seams with atmosphere and creepiness, oozes with impending doom and drips with the mournful shrieks of the wretched. In short, these are the books which beg to be read in the oft cheerless gloom of the colder months.
At the very heart of the gothic novel lies a world shrouded in doubt, particularly with regard to the spiritual and supernatural. These books toy with the idea that there are things that lie far beyond the concept of reason and explanation, teasing forth a narrative cloaked in fear and suspicion and shocking us into a terrifying realm of inexplicable and profound events.
The favoured setting of the gothic novel is in an old castle or mansion, the older and crumblier the better and preferably one which harbours an abundance of secret rooms, trap doors and hidden staircases. The atmosphere must be sinister and shadowy, highlighted by creaks and groans and perhaps the distant clanking of chains. There must be a scheming, tyrannical villain who causes much distress to the central tenet of gothic literature: a woman in distress, ideally one with a delicate constitution and a tendency to swoon. A lot. Which leads us to yet another theme of this genre: a (frequently) doomed romance set against the exploration of sexual desire and pleasure, jealousy, obsession and even (insert shocked emoji here) perversion.
All in all, the gothic novel is a rather delicious blend of romance and creepiness with a touch of horror and unseemliness thrown in. Who could possibly resist such a read?
It is Horace Walpole who is credited with writing the first gothic novel when he wrote The Castle of Otranto in 1764. On original publication it was proclaimed to be a piece of work discovered in the library of an ancient Catholic family in the north of England and originally published in 1529. After it became wildly successful, Walpole confessed to its true origin in a preface to the second edition. People were not amused and declared it to be rubbish romantic fiction. Which, of course, is exactly why Walpole fibbed in the first place.
At the time Walpole felt that past fiction relied too heavily on wild imagination while modern stories were too grounded in reality. He wanted to fuse the two together. In short, he desired to take real people and expose them to extraordinary, sometimes outlandish events and see what happened.
The Castle of Otranto is a short story – just 110 pages long – about Manfred, Lord of The Castle of Otranto, whose son is crushed to death by a gigantic helmet that falls on him. Because of an old prophecy Manfred decides to divorce his own wife and marry Isabella, his almost daughter-in-law. Isabella, however, escapes with the help of Theodore while subsequent events lead to the death of Manfred’s daughter Matilde and a whole litany of other tragic happenings.
A line a few pages into Walpole’s book describes a servant who “came running back breathless, in a frantic manner, his eyes staring, and foaming at the mouth” (he’d witnessed a dead body) and highlights perfectly the rather exaggerated tone which encompasses the gothic novel and which generates a slow constant rumble of hysteria (rather like reality TV). Regardless, this is the novel that ignited the love of a good story with the dark and creepy themes which have been endemic in literature ever since.
Thirty years later Ann Radcliffe took the same elements from The Castle of Otranto and wrote The Mysteries of Udolpho. Unlike the brevity of that novel however, this one is 672 pages of very small type but it is probably the quintessential representation of the gothic romance and, in my honest opinion, is a wee bit more palatable than some of the others. It tells the story of Emily, our poor orphaned heroine, who is forced to accompany Count Montoni to the remote Castle of Udolpho in Italy. Here, amidst the craggy splendour of the Apennines and the haunting torment of the castle, Emily is subjected to all manner of frightening occurrences, real and imagined, and is generally pushed to the limits with the subtle but ever present threats upon her virtue which are rather apt to cause fainting spells.
For Radcliffe, however, the otherworldly and supernatural events always turned out to have a rational and grounded explanation. Which is more than can be said for Matthew Lewis’ The Monk, written in 1796. Read it at your peril for Lewis takes the gothic novel and unmercifully stretches it into Gothic horror. Lewis throws hints and allusions to the wind and instead just deals with full on rape, incest and murder… not to mention consorting with the devil. It’s audacious and sensational and downright perverted, quite frankly. And did I mention that it was written in 1796? How there could have been such an outcry over Lady Chatterley’s Lover after the publication of this novel with its depraved monks and wanton debauchery is beyond me.
In 1820 Charles Maturin wrote Melmoth the Wanderer, whose title character sells his soul to the devil and then spends 150 years desperately trying to find a victim to release him from his bargain. The book is essentially one of stories within stories within stories, all about evil and many taking a swipe at Catholicism. While held in high regard as a classic in its field, where The Monk, at least, had a mad-cap crazy vibe to make it palatable, I remember Melmoth the Wanderer to be plodding and dull.
Elements of the gothic novel found their way into a variety of Victorian era novels: Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Frankenstein and Dracula. All very different books but all incorporating various tenets of gothicism. There’s also Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca which delights in its setting at Manderley, the house full of secrets which bears witness to the psychological pinches of the sinister Mrs Danvers as she quietly torments the second Mrs de Winters. And then there is the not to be missed Northanger Abbey which is a satire of the gothic novel, joyfully tipping gothic conventions upside down and telling the story of Catherine Morland with all the fabulousness and dry wit that could only belong to its author, Jane Austen.
More modern renderings still of the gothic novel are The Thirteenth Tale and Bitter Orange. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield is probably one of my favourite books in general and one I have bought for several people. It is the story of biographer Margaret Lea who is summoned by reclusive author Vida Winters to write her own story. There’s a ghost, a governess, a topiary garden and unsettling twins, Adeline and Emmeline. The story is set in an isolated house on the fog shrouded moors of Yorkshire and is a good old fashioned yarn full of twists and turns and one which weaves Vida’s narrative alongside that of Margaret’s. Dark and thorny and deeply satisfying.
Bitter Orange by Claire Fuller is a brand new addition to the genre, published just this month. After the death of her overbearing mother, Frances, pushing forty, yet to be kissed and without a friend in the world, is hired to go to Lynton’s, a crumbling English manor house now owned by an absentee American. Her job is to catalogue the architecture of the garden. When she arrives she finds that she has company in the form of the handsome Peter, who has been hired to catalogue the inside of the house, and his beautiful, mysterious Italian speaking wife Cara.
Cara befriends Frances inviting her to join her and Peter for dinner and over the course of a few weeks, while languishing in each others company during frequent bouts of heavy eating and drinking and most definitely not working, the story of Peter and Cara’s relationship is unfurled alongside Frances’ own.
Although not as complex and layered as The Thirteenth Tale,Bitter Orange has a lush, atmospheric vibe all its own and instead of being set somewhere dark and sinister, it takes place in the garish heat of summer and had me continually thinking of The Go-Between. I find something highly claustrophobic about books set in the lurid glare of a bright sun. Intoxicating heat seems to cause social mores and restraint to crumble (maybe just for the English?!) and makes any sort of sexual tension and energy shimmer and sizzle. And so it is with Bitter Orange. Frances’ social awkwardness is set against Cara and Peter’s charismatic but dysfunctional relationship. The three form an odd little ménage à trois and rippling uneasily through it all is lust and envy and suspicion, highlighted by several exquisitely mortifying moments which make you squirm. Bitter Orange manages to be dark and bright all at the same time.
