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                                             October 1-8, 2007

Anne Radcliff's "Mysteries of Udolpho" (1794)

  The first really remarkable feature of this
  book: it's so slow! Slow by our standards, to
  be sure, and to be expected, but it's so slow
  it's hard to imagine anyone being engaged by it.

  You get hundreds of pages into
  it's 700 odd, and you will find      It's astounding, Lovecraft praised
  NOTHING HAS HAPPENED.  The main      Radcliff for ability to establish
  characters don't even arrive at      atmosphere, and objected only to
  the castle Udolpho of the title      the poetry.
  until page 200 or so.
                                            But then:  GHOSTWATCH
    Shifting fashions in
    the style of prose.                     Ah, and also... (But: SPOILERS)

    Once it was very                        I think he also objected to her
    verbose and slow,                       constant resolution of the
    then during the                         fantastic elements as an illusion
    pulp period it                          rooted in the mundane.
    became terse and
    quick...                                   Everything neatly explained.

    Now it's veered
    somewhat back
    toward the            PARSIMONY
    earlier style.


          As the novel progresses, the prose
          takes on a kind of weight, there's
          a definite fascination here after
          around the half-way mark, watching
          the gathering storm clouds around
          this remarkably passive woman, as
          she bounces between clear knowledge
          and obvious denial --

                But midway through, I was
                left wondering: Where can
                this story go?  Our heroine
                has only two possible             Ah: around two-thirds of
                saviours, two forms of            the way through, she
                calvary that can storm in         comes up with a glimmer
                and save the day without          of an escape plan!  It's
Lacking         her getting her dainty,           absurdly late, and
strength        feminine hands dirty: the         ineffectual, but it gives
of arms,        arrival of Vallancourt            one the sense that she
or a line       and/or supernatural               might not be thoroughly
of communi-     intervention -- the revenge       retarded.
cation with     of ghosts on the badguys
any author-                                         (She asks her maid
ity; she          (Vallancourt                      if her boyfriend
deigns to         being the guy                     might be able to
indulge in        she should                        spring the two of
any distaste-     have just                         them on promise of
ful activity      eloped with and                   reward later.)
such as           avoided the
spying or         entire fucking
conspiracy...     problem, but
                  noooo she had
                  to keep a               I had a thought that
                  promise made to         the stuff she read in
                  her evidently           her father's papers
                  braindead dear          before burning them
                  deceased                might be a terrible
                  father).                spell, some words of
                                          power to invoke the
                                          spirts on her behalf.
                                          Were this a, shall we
                                          say, normalstory,
                                          where the hero is
                      By the by...        expected to have some
                      I don't think       role in their fate,      With "women's
                      we're ever          I might have been        fiction" such
                      told what the       correct.                 as this, all
                      hell she read                                bets are off.
                      that was such
                      a shock.             SPOILERS

                      Radcliffe went          But I'd forgotten
                      through the             Radcliffe's
                      trouble to set          reputation as a
                      up that wild            tease that always
                      card, and later         explains away the
                      to remind the           supernatural by
                      reader that it          the end.
                      exists, and then
                      never plays it.         Funny, because
                                              that's one of the
                                              reasons I resolved     (Way back
   By the end of the story,                   to read this book:     when, 700
   it surprises by developing                                        long pages
   a degree of psychological                  I was interested       ago.)
   realism underneath the                     in the history of
   stilted prose.                             that trope.

   And all in all,                            No one would be
   this is a huge       The major             interested in this
   improvement on       plot twists           form who was not
   Walpole's            that turn             fascinated by the
   "Castle of           up are                fantastic, and yet
   Otranto".            pretty                it's important to
                        crazy though:         undercut it and
     (Which strikes                           return to the normal
     me as a more       Everything            by story's end.
     direct             is tied up                                  That is,
     influence on       with               Is this intended         if you
     Sir Walter         Udolpho            to sanitize it in        regard
     Scott than                            some way?                pirates
     Radcliffe.)                                                    creeping
                                           Tales of the             through
       Could it be that                    daemonic that pose       secret
       she was learning                    as the opposite.         passages
       to write as she                                              as "normal"
       was working on
       this book?  That                    VILLAINY
       would explain
       the interminable
       meandering at it's
       outset.


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